vegetarian

Zucchini (Courgettes) braised in rosemary infused olive oil

maki — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 14:23:28 +0200

I have not doing a lot of serious cooking lately, at least not the kind that results in a useful blog post. Most of my cooking energies have been expended on another project, which is wearing me down a bit (more on that at a later time). What I have been cooking for actual meals is very simple food, that requires minimal kitchen time, though not necessarily quick to cook.

The subject of this article is zucchini (courgette) slices that are slowly braised in a fragrant oil. It requires perhaps 10 minutes of actual kitchen time, but an hour or more to complete. Days even, if you choose one option. You don’t need to hover over the pan for that time, but you do have to be nearby, to keep an eye on the hot oil, not to mention any errant pets, children or clumsy adults that wander in.

The wait and vigilance are worth it though. The zucchini slices, scented with the pine-mintiness of rosemary, become brown and sticky and almost caramelized on the surface, and soft and creamy on the inside. It’s great as an accompaniment to roast or panfried meats or fish, or as part of a vegetarian meal (try it with pasta). I could have it every day, just on its own, if it weren’t for the rather ruinous effect it has on my waistline, even if the oil is good-for-you olive oil.

This is the taste of late summer in Provence for me.

Recipe: Zucchini (Courgettes) braised in rosemary oil

Preliminaries: For optimal results, make some rosemary infused olive oil. Just put some good olive oil in a clean glass jar, about two thirds of the way up, then stuff the jar full with rosemary. No garlic, no chilis, and certainly not a dainty single sprig. Put the lid on the jar and leave it out on your countertop. Give it a shake when you see it, once a day at least. In a few days you will have a headily rosemary-scented olive oil. At this point you can leave the rosemary in to make the scent even stronger, or remove the rosemary.

If you are in a hurry, you can scent your olive oil as you cook the zucchini slices by putting a couple of sprigs into the simmering oil. Beware of the rosemary burning though, which will impart a bitter taste.

3 to 4 small to medium zucchini (courgettes)
Rosemary infused olive oil, or olive oil plus a couple of sprigs of fresh rosemary, or rosemary hydrolat if you have it (see notes below about hydrolat)
Salt

Slice the zucchini (courgettes) into 1/2 inch / 1cm thick rounds. Pat the slices dry with paper towels or a kitchen towel.

Pour 1/2 inch / 1cm oil into a large frying pan, and turn the heat up to HIGH. Put the zucchini in one layer in the pan - do not overcrowd the pan. Keep the heat on HIGH until the oil starts to bubble up rapidly, then lower the heat to low-medium, or to the point where the oil is quietly bubbling around the zucchini.

Leave like this for at least 30 minutes, until the undersides of the zucchini slices turn golden brown. Turn the slices over, and cook until the other sides are also golden brown.

Do not add salt during the cooking process! Salt will draw out the moisture from the zucchini, which is not what we want here. We want the moisture to stay inside while the surface gets crisp and caramelized.

Once the zucchini slices are darkly golden brown (they will have shrunk quite a lot too), remove them from the oil. You can drain them on paper towels to get rid of excess oil if you like. If you are using hydrolad, add about 1/2 teaspoonful at most to the hot zucchini slices and toss rapidly right now. Add a pinch of salt - don’t oversalt, or you’ll mask the delicate rosemary scent.

Serve piping hot, or at room temperature.

You can save the cooking oil for another dish. If you mix the braised zucchini with pasta, sauté the freshly cooked pasta in a bit of the oil. Wonderful!

Chef Erick Vedel’s Provençal cooking classes in Arles

I learned the slow braising technique at a wonderful class in Provençal cooking given by Erick Vedel in Arles, the town in Provence made famous by Vincent Van Gogh (he left an ear there, literally). Chef Erick scented his zucchini with mint hydrolat - hydrolat is the water that result when herbs and other plants are steam-distilled for their essential oils. Getting a hold of hydrolat may be a problem, unless you have some lab equipment to do your own, so I’ve used rosemary-infused oil instead (I just prefer rosemary with zucchini instead of mint). If you can get a hold of either rosemary or mint hydrolat, by all means use that - I’ve included instructions in the recipe. Using a drop or two of edible essential oil would work too, but be very sparing or you’ll overwhelm the zucchini.

I’ll have more about Chef Erick’s classes in later posts, but in the meantime if you’re interested in a great culinary experience and you’ll be in the area, I can highly recommend his classes. (If you’re a bit persnikety about order and cleanliness and stuff, be forewarned though, his kitchen is let’s say, well lived in.) Here he’s showing us how he distills lavender, using his huge antique copper distiller.

Erick Vedel’s website

Incidentally, I haven’t really posted a lot about my time here in Provence (though we have actually been living here for the better part of 6 months or so, with occasional forays elsewhere) because I have been scared of jinxing our chances of being able to stay here permanently, if I talked about it or something. I know, irrational. Things are looking up in that area now…once we are officially and truly settled you’re likely to read a lot more about it here. (That is in case this small mention has jinxed it! Ack. ^_^;)

Nasu no miso dengaku: Japanese slow-roasted eggplant with dengaku sauce

maki — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 09:02:04 +0200

It’s still summertime, but I can feel the cooler days of fall coming, especially in the evenings when the temperature is dropping just a bit more than it did a few weeks ago. This is one of the best times of the year for food lovers, especially if you love vegetables.

Eggplants (aubergines) are in high season now and will be around for at least another month or so. While you can get them year-round, they are at their best of course in their natural season.

This is a classic Japanese way of serving eggplant, and it’s really easy. All you do is to slowly roast the eggplant until tender, either in the oven or on the stovetop in a frying pan, then serve with a glossy, salty-sweet dengaku (田楽）sauce. I could eat this every day, with a bowl of plain rice and some cold mugicha to wash it down.

Recipe: Slow roasted eggplant (aubergine) with dengaku sauce (nasu no miso dengaku 茄子の味噌田楽)

Serves 1-2, depending on what else is served at the same meal.

1 large, round or 2-3 small, fresh eggplants. Try to get ones with thin skins.
Olive or sesame oil

For the dengaku sauce:

3 Tbs. miso. Here I’ve used a haccho miso (八丁味噌）with some texture to it, but any miso you like will do. See Japanese miso primer.
1 Tbs. sugar
1 Tbs. sake
1 Tbs. mirin
1 tsp. grated fresh ginger
1 tsp. olive oil or sesame oil
water

Prepare the eggplant, according to the type:

If you’re using a big round one: Cut off the blossom end, and reserve to use as a decoration.

If you are using a big long one (e.g. the standard Italian or American type eggplant): Take off the blossom end (optionally reserve for use as decoration) and cut the eggplant into thick slices crosswise, or into half lengthwise. (Note that I don’t recommend this type of eggplant for this, since the skin tends to be rather tough. Choose one of the other kinds if you can.)

If you’re using a small thin Asian-type eggplant: Cut in half lengthwise, keeping the blossom end on for decorative purposes.

Rub the cut surfaces of the eggplant with a little sesame or olive oil. Roast it in an oven at 200°C / 400°F, cut side down and tented with some loose foil until tender (the time depends on the size of the eggplant, but it’s about 10 minutes for a small eggplant, 30 minutes for a big eggplant, with the slices somewhere in between). It’s tender when you can pierce through easily with a skewer. You can try cooking the eggplant in a toaster oven too, but I haven’t tested this myself so you’re on your own as to timing and so on.

Alternatively, you can slow-roast the eggplant in a dry frying pan. Place cut-side down in a non-stick pan, and cover loosely with some aluminum foil. Pan-roast until tender over medium-low heat, turning once. This method is especially suited for small eggplant - it takes 5-10 minutes and doesn’t heat up the kitchen as much as the oven method.

While the eggplant cooks, prepare the dengaku sauce. Combine all the ingredients in a small pan, and set over low heat. Mix the sauce vigorously with a wooden spoon, until the sauce turns glossy. Adjust the consistency by adding drops of water. It should not be too runny, but should flow thickly, rather like a thick ketchup.

Serve the eggplant warm, coated with sauce.

About dengaku sauce

Dengaku (田楽 - the characters mean ‘rice paddy’ + ‘harmony’ or ‘music’ or ‘play’) is a classic miso based sauce. There are many variations, but the basics are the same: miso with sweetener, a little oil for adding gloss, and sake and/or mirin for added flavor. Sometimes a little soy sauce is added, or dashi stock instead of water, or even MSG. My version comes from my mother, of course, and is quite simple.

You can make dengaku sauce in quantity and keep it in a closed jar in the refrigerator, but I don’t bother since it’s so easy to make fresh. If you do make it and store it, warm it up a bit before using.

Dengaku sauce is terrific on other grilled or roasted vegetables, firm tofu, blanched konnyaku, and so on. It’s a bit sweet for my taste for serving on meat and fish, but you can try it out!

Add spice to dengaku-sauced foods by sprinkling on some shichimi tohgarashi (7-ingredient pepper, see Essential staples of a Japanese pantry).

Big, fat, round eggplant

These are the eggplants I used for the version at the top of the page, bought at my favorite farmer’s market in Provence:

You might be thinkng, “But Japanese eggplants are small and thin and cute!” Well the standard ones are, but in Kyoto (the home of Japanese haute cuisine) there is a variety of eggplant that is similar to the one in the photo called kaganasu （加賀茄子）- big, round, and quite thin-skinned. Here’s a photo of one.

There’s nothing like the combination of juicy, soft eggplant with that sweet-salty, thick dengaku sauce. Wait, I think I need to go to the market today…

Other favorite eggplant recipes from the archives:

Japanese country style stewed eggplant (nasu no inakani)
Steamed eggplant with spicy peanut sauce
Grilled eggplant and mushroom miso soup (you can make this just with eggplants)
Ratatouille

Vegetable Tempura

maki — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 09:24:41 +0200

I’ve never really been good at making tempura, the quintessential Japanese deep fried dish. My mother’s tempura has always been terrific - crispy, light, and not greasy at all. So, taking advantage of her extended vacation here this year, I drilled her properly on how she makes tempura.

Her method does not rely on special tempura flour (cheap in Japan but expensive or hard to get a hold of elsewhere), or other recently touted additions like vodka or other high-alcohol liquor, so anyone should be able to do it. Just follow the key points listed below.

Point no. 1: Use the freshest ingredients you can find

The light tempura batter is meant to enhance the flavors of the vegetables or shrimp or squid and so on that is being fried, not mask it. So the fresher your ingredients are, the better your tempura will be.

Point no. 2: Dry the surface of the ingredients completely

This is a point often missed in other directions for tempura. In order to keep the tempura batter crisp, it’s important to make the surface of the things you’re frying very dry. My mother cuts up her vegetables at least half an hour beforehand, and spreads them out in a single layer on kitchen towels or paper towels and puts them near a sunny window. (Since this article is about vegetable tempura I’ll leave the subject of how to prep shrimp or squid for another time, but squid is actually allowed to dry out for several hours in the refrigerator, and shrimp is patted dry with kitchen or paper towels.)

Point no. 3: Use ice cold water for your batter, and don’t mix it much

The flour in tempura batter is just there to hold the other ingredients together. It should not be allowed to develop gluten, which leads to heavy, doughy batter. Therefore, you should always use ice cold water with ice cubes in it for the batter, and not mix it too much. A few ice cubes and lumps of flour floating in the batter are fine - they won’t stick to the food you’re dipping in the batter anyway.

Point no. 4: Don’t overcrowd your oil

You should keep the frying oil at a constant high temperature. If you put too much in at once, you will lower the temperature, which can make the tempura soggy and oil-logged.

Point no. 5: Don’t make too much at one time

At a tempura-specialist restaurant, your tempura is fried right in front of you and served immediately. They only fry a little bit at a time. That’s the ideal way to do tempura. At home, you could stand at the stove making individual portions for everyone else, but if you don’t want to do that just make a small batch at a time and try to eat it immediately, even if you have to stand up again to fry another batch. (This is why I think tempura is really ideal as an appetizer, rather than a main course, in Western-style meal structures. It’s easier to make appetizer-sized portions and eat it right away.)

Point no. 6: Don’t fuss with the tempura once it’s in the oil

There’s not need to keep flipping over your tempura over and over. This just lowers the surface temperature unnecessarily. Let the hot oil do its work! Just flip over once if needed.

Point no. 7: Drain the oil very well.

If you hold the tempura piece for a few seconds just above the oil, with a bit of the end still in the oil, the oil will drain off a lot better. Then transfer the tempura piece to the draining setup that is explained later. Some people transfer the tempura to a second draining setup (with fresh paper, etc.) to drain off even more oil

With these points in mind, here is my mother’s tempura recipe.

Recipe: Vegetable Tempura

For 2 main dish or 4 appetizer portions

Use whatever seasonal vegetables you have. These are what we had in late June in southern France. See the end for some other vegetable suggestions.

1 small sweet potato
2 small eggplants/aubergines
About 9 baby zucchini, or 2 regular sized zucchini
8 green shiso leaves
1 medium carrot
A handful of green beans

For the batter:

1 egg
A jug of ice water
3 Tbs. cake flour or all-purpose flour (not bread flour)
1 Tbs. corn or potato starch

Oil for frying (My mother prefers rapeseed oil (natane abura 菜種油). You can also use sunflower, corn or peanut oil.)

Cut the sweet potato into rounds with the skin on. Take the blossom end off the eggplants, and slice into wide strips lengthwise. (If you have a fat Western style eggplant, cut into rounds as with the sweet potato.) Leave the baby zucchini whole, just cutting off the blossom ends; cut regular zucchini into wide strips. Leave the shiso leaves whole. Cut the carrot into matchsticks. Leave the green beans whole, just cutting off the tops and tails.

Spread out the cut vegetables into a single layer on kitchen or paper towels, and leave to dry out on the surface for at least half an hour. The uncut baby vegetables and so on should not need to be dried, but should be totally dry on the surface.

Just before you are ready to start frying, mix up the batter. If your egg is a ‘small’ size, use 250 ml of ice water (or 5 times the amount of egg). If you have a ‘large’ egg you’ll need a tad more water. Mix the egg and water together, then add the flours, mixing rapidly with chopsticks or a fork. Do not try to get rid of all lumps, and floating ice cubes are fine - they’ll help to keep the batter cool.

Pour the oil into a suitable container, no more than 1/3th of the way full for safety. A tip here: Use a heavy pot that retains heat well. A cast iron enamelled pot such as Le Creuset is ideal. In Japan, most people deep fry in a wok - a proper wok made of iron is good because it retains heat well. Don’t use a cheap thin pan. For very small amounts you can also use a frying or sauté pan with fairly high sides. (Neither of us owns a dedicated deep fat fryer nor do we want to make the space for one in our kitchens.)

Heat up the oil. You can use a thermometer if you like, in which case you should heat up the oil to about 175°C or 350°F. Otherwise you can see if the oil is hot enough by dropping a bit of batter in the oil. If the batter blobs drop down and them come shooting up to the surface immediately, the oil is hot enough.

Make ready a large plate or tray lined with newspapers covered with kitchen towels, or a draining rack.

Larger pieces or whole vegetables should be dipped in the batter individually; smaller pieces like the matchstick carrots or the green beans are usually fried in little bundles, dipped in the batter and then into the oil with chopsticks. Start with the more delicate vegetables first, such as the shiso leaves, which only take a few seconds. Proceed to the harder vegetables, ending up with things like the sweet potato slices. Don’t overcrowd the oil pot - be patient, and only do 3 to 4 pieces at at time!

The amount of time each thing should be cooked depends on the vegetable. As mentioned, very delicate thin things only need a few seconds, while hard vegetables need a few minutes. You’ll learn how long things need to be fried by experience, but if you’re not sure just take a piece and cut or bite into it.

Drain each piece on the prepared draining plate or try. Don’t stack the pieces on top of each other, or the pieces underneath will just soak up the oil from above!

Serve tempura when it’s piping hot, for maximum crispiness.

How to present tempura

Tempura is often served on a piece of absorbent paper called a kaishi (懐紙), folded attractively. You can use a piece of plain, unprinted paper with absorbent qualities, such as untreated drawing paper (which is what I used in the photo above), plain white paper napkins, and so on. Otherwise, just arrange it attractively on a plate.

What to serve with tempura

For vegetable tempura, my favorite condiment is just some sea salt, sprinkled on. You could add a few drops of lemon juice too, though this isn’t traditional. You can also use tentsuyu, which is just a slightly thinned out version of soba tsuyu or soba dipping sauce (thin out with a bit of dashi stock). Grated daikon radish is often added to tentsuyu.

Leftover tempura

Leftover tempura can be crisped up in a toaster oven or regular oven. Just spread out in a single layer and bake for about 5 to 10 minutes until it’s a slightly darker shade of brown.

Japanese people love soggy-on-purpose tempura too, especially in the form of tendon, which is just tempura on top of rice with some mentsuyu poured over it in its simplest form. Tendon is best made with freshly fried tempura, but you can use leftover tempura too.

What vegetables can you use for tempura?

Basically, anything that is in season can be used. Harder vegetables should be cut thinner or smaller so that they cook faster. Some examples, both traditionally Japanese and not so traditional:

Traditional:

Sliced onions
Green onions, cut into about 1/2 inch / 1cm pieces (fry in little bundles mixed with matchstick carrots)
Green shiso leaves (red shiso is too bitter)
Chrysanthemum leaves and shungiku
Green beans
Snow peas
Sweet potatoes (the white or orange kind)
Eggplant/aubergine
Kabocha squash
Shishito peppers (slightly spicy)
Burdock (gobo)
Carrots
Fava beans (soramame)

Not very traditional:

Green asparagus - cut into about 2 inch / 4 cm lengths
Parsley leaves
Sage leaves
Thai basil
Watercress
Arugula (rucola/rocket)
Green peas
Zucchini
Slightly unripe, firm tomatoes (cut into wedges and deseed)
Potatoes (cut into rounds or wedges)
Sweet peppers (cut into strips)
Jalapeño peppers (whole or cut into half and deseeded)
Firm banana (cut into chunks) - I’ve never tried plantain but that could work too

My Mother's Simply Braised Spring Vegetables with a hint of Japan

maki — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:52:08 +0200

Here’s another recipe from my mother. She just told me the recipe, and the reminiscences, verbally, (she says the recipe is too simple to write down!); I’ve written it down in the first person, from her point of view.

When I was young and Makiko and her sister were small, Makiko’s father was sent to England by his company. After brief stays in London and Kent, we settled in Wokingham, a small town in Berkshire. (Nowadays I have heard it’s grown a lot bigger.) This was in the 1970s, when we had to go all the way to London to buy basic ingredients for Japanese cooking, like soy sauce. Making any kind of Japanese food was a struggle.

I grew some Japanese vegetables that I really missed, but had no chance of buying even in London at the time, in the garden of our rented house - things like shiso, mitsuba, shungiku, komatsuna, daikon and gobo (burdock). [See a dozen Japanese herbs and vegetables to grow - maki] I didn’t know anything about gardening, so when my gobo and daikon weren’t nice and straight, but were stubby ugly things with multiple roots, I wrote to my mother (international phone calls were so expensive then) in tears, asking her what to do. She wrote back so many times with detailed instructions - she was an avid gardener with a real green thumb. I still have those letters.

As I gradually adjusted to life away from Japan and my family, I became better at using local ingredients and adapting them to Japanese methods. This very simple summer braised vegetable dish is one recipe that I came up with during those years, that I still make every summer. It doesn’t even use dashi, which is standard in so many Japanese recipes. It uses vegetables that are available in Europe in early summer - new potatoes, green beans, peas, and carrots. The umami comes from the fresh young vegetables. Japanese cuisine is first and foremost about using seasonal ingredients, so to my mind, this is a very Japanese way of cooking.

Recipe: Simply Braised Spring Vegetables

This makes about 4 servings as part of a Japanese meal, to accompany rice, miso soup and one or two other dishes. You can also serve it alone or as a side dish to meat or fish.

To get the best flavor, it’s very important to use the freshest, preferably organic, vegetables you can find.

10-12 small new potatoes
2 small or 1 medium carrot
1 small onion
About 1 cup of shelled green peas
A large handful of green beans
1/2 Tbs. soy sauce (well she said ‘shu-shu’ (drizzle-drizzle), which I’m extrapolating to be about 1/2 tablespoon! - maki)
Salt (good sea salt is preferred)
Extra virgin olive oil, or other good flavorful oil (I use olive oil because you can get such wonderful olive oil here in the Provence, but you can also use sesame oil, walnut oil, and so on.)

Wash the new potatoes, and cut in half if they are big. Scrub and cut up the carrots into chunks. (Don’t peel the carrots - there’s a lot of flavor in the skin!) Dry both well in a kitchen towel.

Cut the onion in half, then slice against the grain (parallel to the root - as you would if you are cutting onion rings). Cutting against the grain ensures that the onions will cook faster.

Cut the tops and tails off the green beans, and cut in half. (If you have old fashioned green beans, take off the strings too.)

Heat up some oil in the bottom of the pan over medium-low heat. Put in the potatoes, and sauté while shaking occasionally until they are turning brown. Add the carrots about halfway through, and continue sautéing. This requires some patience, since it takes about 20 minutes or more.

Drain away any excess oil at this point. Add the sliced onions to the pan, and sauté some more until the onions are transparent and limp.

Add a small amount of water, just to about halfway up the potatoes. Add a tiny pinch of salt. Make an otoshibuta (drop lid) with a piece of aluminum foil, by crinkling it up so it fits on top of the vegetables in the pan, then poking a couple of holes in it with a chopstick. This otoshibuta ensures that the vegetables will cook evenly.

In the meantime, cook the green beans and peas in boiling salted water until crisp-tender. (Put the green beans in first, then add the peas for a couple of minutes.) Drain and set aside.

When the potatoes are tender (test by poking with a chopstick or fork) add the soy sauce, green beans and peas. Simmer for a few minutes longer while shaking the pan so that the flavors are evenly distributed. The water should be almost completely gone.

This is best served warm, but is also good at room temperature.

Optional: Add a little bit of sake or mirin near the end of the cooking process. This gives the vegetables a little added flavor and shine.

Tip: Sautéing vegetables in oil before stewing or braising

You will notice that this recipe calls for sautéeing the potatoes and onions in oil before braising. While most people know about sautéing onions and garlic to bring out the flavor, not many do this to other vegetables. Sautéing vegetables before cooking further brings out the flavor and sweetness in them. To prevent the final dish from becoming too oily, I always drain off any excess oil before proceeding further, as I did here.

Book review: The Enlightened Kitchen, shōjin ryōri (shoujin ryouri) for the home

maki — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 18:20:07 +0200

The Enlightened Kitchen: Fresh Vegetable Dishes from the Temples of Japan by Mari Fujii is a beautifully presented, easy introduction to the world of shojin ryori (or shoujin ryouri 精進料理), the highly refined vegan cuisine developed by Buddhist monks in Japan. I’ve often been asked by readers of this site and other people to recommend a good shojin ryori book: While there are many such books in Japanese, I haven’t really been comfortable recommending a book in English so far. Shojin ryori tends to use a lot of ingredients that are only available in Japan - even more so than ‘regular’ Japanese cooking - and it is a haute cuisine that requires a lot of skill.

The Enlightened Kitchen, on the other hand, is filled with nonintimidating recipes, that any amateur cook with decent access to Japanese ingredients could tackle. Some of the vegetables and dried ingredients may trip you up, but it’s easy to think up suitable substitions. The author, Mari Fujii, is married to a Buddhist monk, and has been teaching, speaking and writing about shojin ryori and other types of Buddhist vegetarian cuisines for 2 decades in Japan.

The book is divided into six sections: Soup; Salads; Tofu and Beans; Vegetables; Potato, Rice and Grains; and Desserts. There’s a small but essential Basic Techniques section, and a useful glossary. Most of the recipes are vegan, following shojin ryori teachings, but a few do use dairy products, which are used in Chinese Buddhist temple food for example. It’s a really beautiful book, with gorgeous photos and layout. It’s a pleasure to hold and just flip through.

You may have read my rave reviews of the Japanese vegan cookbooks by Yumiko Kano here before. The recipes in The Enlightened Kitchen are more straightforwardly traditional than those of Yumiko Kano, but are still very accessible and modern. And of course, this one is in well-translated English! I’ve tried a few of the recipes already, and they’ve all turned out very well with minimum fuss, even in my current tiny holiday home kitchen. Some of our favorites so far are the eggplant dishes, since eggplants (aubergines) are abundant here in southern France: Sesame-Flavored Eggplant (miso) Soup is rich and toasty, and Eggplant Salad with Lemon-Flavored Plum Dressing is a great side dish or starter. Even the resident dedicted omnivore approves heartily. (Check out the bento-friendly lentil salad inspired by a recipe in this book over on Just Bento.)

The Enlightened Kitchen: Fresh Vegetable Dishes from the Temples of Japan: Author: Mari Fujii; Translated by: Richard Jeffery; Photography: Tae Hamamura; Published by: Kodansha International; Amazon link (Amazonk UK link; Amazon.de link)

And now the part you’ve been waiting for (or skipped forward to): The Giveaway!

I have one copy of The Enlightened Kitchen to give away, courtesy of the publisher, Kodansha International. Just leave a comment to this article, making sure that you put a valid email in the email box (don’t worry, no one but I will see it). To make it a bit more fun, tell us what your favorite vegan dish is, linking to the recipe if possible. Your comment must be posted before 23:59:59 CET (Central European Time) on Sunday, June 7th. One winner will be selected at random, and announced sometime next week. Good luck!

The giveaway is now closed. The winner will be announced later this week!

Sweet onion and soba salad with fat-free umeboshi dressing

maki — Mon, 25 May 2009 10:48:38 +0200

We still haven’t found a house to buy (though we may getting close), and due to the way things work in France, we are probably going to be nomads for at least 4 more months even if we put in an offer for a place tomorrow. I’ve gotten more used to cooking in tiny holiday home kitchens, but I’m still not up to anything too complicated - or in other words anything that requires the use of more than 2 burners at a time.

Fortunately it’s now summer, which means lighter, less complicated meals anyway. This salad, which can be a meal on its own, a starter or a light side dish, features sweet salad onions (spring is the season for them, at least around these parts), sliced paper-thin and refreshed in ice cold water. The tart dressing features umeboshi (pickled plums) and uses no oil, so this is an almost fat-free, fairly low calorie dish, that’s vegan to boot.

Recipe: Sweet onion and soba salad with umeboshi dressing

For 4 starter sized portions or 2 main dish portions

For the dressing:

7 Tbs. (or 1/2 U.S. cup minus 1 Tbs.) vegan dashi, or the same amount of water with 1/2 tsp. of konbu seaweed based or (for non-vegetarians) bonito-based dashi stock granules
4 Tbs. freshly squeezed lemon juice
About 3-4 umeboshi, or enough to make 1 Tbs. ume paste
2 Tbs. soy sauce

For the salad:

1 200g (about 7oz) pack of soba noodles
1 large or 2 medium sweet onions (see notes)
4-5 green shiso leaves
romaine or cos lettuce leaves

To make the dressing:

Take the pits out of the umeboshi, and chop the pulp up finely. You should have about 1 tablespoon of ume pulp. (If you can find something called ‘ume paste’, which is pureed umeboshi, you can use that to save some time.)

Put all the ingredients into a jar and close the lid tightly. Shake vigorously to combine. Refrigerate until you are ready to use it. (It will keep for about 3 days in the refrigerator.)

To make the salad:

Slice the onion as thinly as you can manage. Put the slices in a bowl of ice water.
Bring a pot of water to the boil, and cook the soba noodles following the detailed instructions here. The rinsing stage is very important here, otherwise the soba noodles will become gummy!
Shred the lettuce leaves - you should have enough for about 1 cup per plate. (Alternatively you can just line the plates with whole leaves, but I prefer to shred it.)
Finely shred the shiso leaves.

To assemble:

Line each plate with the lettuce.
Mount the soba noodles on top.
Drain the onion slices and pat them dry with kitchen towels. Mound on top of the soba noodles. Top with a sprinkling of the shiso leaves.
Pour the dressing over the salad, making sure everyone has an equal amount of the umeboshi bits.
Each diner should then mix the salad thoroughly before eating.

Notes

You can make all the components in advance, and assemble the salad as you’re about to serve it.

While this is a vegan salad, the flavors go very well with grilled meat or sausages. For a lighter version, omit the soba and just make a salad of the onions and lettuce.

To make this a complete one-dish vegan meal, top it with tofu cubes, and optionally increase the soy sauce in the dressing to 3 tablespoons. For a fun and so not vegan variation, top with crispy bacon bits, and/or slices of poached chicken breast.

The onions

Around these parts sweet white onions are sold as ‘oignons doux’. You can see them at the markets in big bunches like these.

In the U.S. look for varieties like Vidalia, Walla Walla and Maui.

By putting them in ice water, you do get rid of much of the ‘oniony-ness’ that makes you somewhat pungent, but you may want to avoid eating this salad just before a job interview or blind date, to be on the safe side.

Inarizushi (sushi in a bean bag) Redux: Cooking your own inarizushi skins

maki — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 07:02:50 +0100

Four years ago I posted a very basic recipe for inarizushi, homely sushi that is stuffed into a fried tofu skin or aburaage. It’s been one of the most popular articles here on Just Hungry ever since. That only gave instructions for stuffing pre-made (canned or vacuum packed) skins, so I thought I’d update it with instructions for making your own inarizushi skins from scratch. These instructions will be particularly useful to vegetarians and vegans, since most if not all premade skins are cooked in a fish-based traditional dashi stock. And, for all of you who have had problems making Eggs in Treasure Bags with those small, thin canned skins: You’ll find that making the eggs from your own, sturdy skins is so much easier.

Preparing aburaage (fried tofu skins)

Aburaage (油揚げ) are made from plain tofu that’s been sliced and then deep fried. When the slices are deep fried, they turn crinkly and form an air pocket inside. You can find aburaage in the refrigerated or freezer section of a Japanese grocery store. They are made in the same way as Chinese ‘tofu puffs’ or ‘bean curd puffs’, except they are large and flat instead of small and puffy.

This is how plain aburaage look.

They usually come packed 2 to 3 to a bag. I always keep aburaage in the freezer until I need them.

In Japan, aburaage are mostly used in stewed dishes, soups, and so on. Before it’s cooked, you must blanch and de-oil it. This process is called aburanuki (油抜き) or yudoushi (湯通し); any Japanese cook knows how and when to do this, but it’s one of those details that can get forgotten in translation so to speak. Anyway, it’s very easy to do. Just put the whole aburaage in boiling water to cover for a couple of minutes.

Then drain the boiling water off. This gets rid of some of the surface oil. Let the aburaage cool down before handling further. You can wipe off even more surface oil by patting the aburaage down with paper towels. (Untreated aburaage is about 80-100 calories each, depending on the size; the de-oiling treatment gets rid of 15-20 calories worth of oil.)

At this point, you can use the aburaage as-is, cut into strips and put into miso soup for example, or just cut into half and simmered for a bit in udon noodle soup for kitsune udon. But do remember: When simmering aburaage, always de-oil it. It makes all the difference.

Recipe: Inarizushi skins

Once you have de-oiled your aburaage, making inarizushi skins from them is easy. I like to cut them in half first so that they are ready to stuff once they’re cooked. I’m finding that the aburaage I can buy these days have nice big air pockets inside, so I don’t have to do anything for them to naturally form bags. But if you find yourself with skinny aburaage where the sides ‘stick’ inside, you can loosen them up by rolling a chopstick over the surface before de-oiling. Then after de-oiling, you can gently pry the sides apart to form the bag.

Once you have your cut-in-half aburaage ‘bags’, it’s time to cook them. This amount of poaching liquid is enough for 12 skins, or 6 (2 packs) of aburaage cut in half.

About 1 1/3 cups (350ml) vegan dashi stock, traditional dashi stock, or plain water with 1 tsp. of dashi granules, OR just plain water
3 to 4 Tbs. sugar (depending on how sweet you want them to be), or an equivalent amount of alternative sweetener
2 Tbs. sake
2 Tbs. mirin
3 to 4 Tbs. dark soy sauce (depending on how salty you want them to be)

Combine all the ingredients in a pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to a simmer, and put in your de-oiled and cut in half aburaage skins. Simmer for about 15 minutes, until the liquid has evaporated down to about half the original amount. Turn off the heat and let the skins cool down in the liquid.

You can store them in the cooking liquid, well covered, in the refrigerator for 2-3 days. I haven’t really tried freezing them, but you could try it out.

When you’re ready to use the skins, just squeeze them out lightly so they aren’t dripping. These skins are bigger (not to mention sturdier and easier to handle) than the canned kind, so you’ll need more sushi rice per inarizushi, about 1/3 to 1/2 cup. Here is my basic sushi rice recipe; optionally add a teaspoon extra of sugar to the sushi vinegar mix. You can also try the lower calorie mix with hijiki seaweed, or mix in some toasted sesame seeds, shelled edamame, salmon flakes or furikake - whatever strikes your fancy.

You can present the inarizushi with the open end tucked under and down, as I described in the original inarizushi article. Note that the homemade inaruzushi skins are much lighter in color than the sometimes rather virulently reddish-brown canned kind. They are subtler in flavor too - you can really taste the tofu skin itself.

You can also present the inarizushi with the open end up (optionally fold down the edges for neatness). This is especially nice if you have colorful mixed rice as a filling. Here I’ve used some chopped up umeboshi in the rice, as well as as decoration. The umeboshi gives a subtle pink tint and pleasant sourness to the rice. (I used brown rice to make the sushi rice, which is why it’s beige-ish.)

Another inarizushi stuffing technique, not shown here, is to turn the skins completely inside out, and then stuff as normal. This gives the inarizushi a sort of lacy look, which gives a nice contrast if you line when up with regular outside-in brown inarizushi on a plate or in a bento box.

For people who live outside of Japan, the only drawback to making your own inarizushi skins (besides the slight bother of actually cooking them) is that fresh or frozen aburaage can be rather expensive, compared to the long-shelf-life canned skins. (In Japan aburaage is a great budget protein!) Still, the flavor and texture are so much better, so if you can get a hold of aburaage, I hope you give it a try!

Kouya Dofu or Kohya Dofu, Freeze Dried Tofu

maki — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 16:04:12 +0100

I’ve talked a little about kohya dofu or kouya dofu (高野豆腐）in the past, but I thought I’d describe it in detail so that I can refer back to it when I use this very versatile Japanese pantry staple in recipes.

Kouya dofu is freeze dried tofu. It’s a long lasting pantry staple of most Japanese households. It comes in plastic packaging, usually 5 to a pack, like so:

Each square is about the size of a business card, and about 1cm or 1/2 inch or so thick. Each kouya dofu square is about 90 calories. They look like dehydrated squares of bread, or one of those sponges that you soak in water to reconstitute and use. The packets require no refrigeration.

Indeed, it is a sponge - a block of tofu that’s been reduced to its cell structure. It’s a very old traditional preserved food, that probably got invented by accident when someone left out some tofu in the winter and it froze solid. It’s made by repeatedly freezing and thawing tofu, until all the moisture can be extracted.

Usually, kouya dofu is used by reconstituting it first. The easiest way is to soak it for a while in boiling water to cover. When the water has cooled down enough for the tofu to be taken out and genty squeezed, it’s ready to use. It swells up to about 3-4 times its original size.

From here, you can just cut it up and use it in soups or stews. You can also marinate it. It has a more dense and firm texture than regular tofu, and like regular tofu it soaks up any flavor it is soaked or cooked in. It’s usually stewed in a standard japanse soy sauce - mirin - sake - dashi - sugar mixture.

Here I’ve cooked some reconstituted kouya dofu in the same way that I cooked frozen tofu cutlets, to make kouya dofu nuggets. But I didn’t have to take the time to freeze and defrost regular tofu. The results are much ‘meatier’ than nuggets made with frozen regular tofu. You might even be able to fool some unsuspecting people into think it’s some sort of meat….

Another interesting way of using kouya dofu is to turn it into a powder by grating it or whizzing it in a food processor. The powder can be used instead of breadcrumbs, as a filler or binder in burgers and meatballs. This can be a good thing for celiacs and gluten intolerant people. The spongy texture soaks up any excess moisture and flavors. And of course, it provides and extra protain boost.

In Japan, kouya dofu is very cheap. Outside of Japan it can be more expensive, but the packet of 5 in the photo above was only $1.99 at Nara Foods in Port Washington, Long Island. So, look for it next time you are in a Japanese grocery store and give it a try, especially if you or someone you cook for has gluten allergies, or are vegan or vegetarian.

Variable Roasted Vegetables (an everyday favorite)

maki — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 16:29:07 +0200

Following up on the previous post where I asked about your favorite go-to everyday dishes (keep your ideas coming!) I thought I’d introduce some of mine. The posting of them may be sporadic, since I’ll be taking pictures and things when I actually made them for dinner.

First up is something that is very easy to assemble, quite healthy, cheap, as seasonal as you want it to be, and almost infinately variable. It’s simply roasted vegetables. I make this all the time, throughout the year, using whatever vegetables I have. It’s a good refrigerator-clearer too.

This is not really a recipe, but a sort of generic formula for roasting vegetables.

The basic roasted vegetable formula

Prep time: 5-10 minutes
Cooking time: 20 minutes + 10 minutes

Preheat the oven to 225°C/ 440°F. Make ready one or two baking sheets

For a well-rounded one-dish meal, I use this combination:

1 part starchy vegetables, e.g. winter squash or kabocha, sweet or white potatoes, lotus root, other starchy roots.
1 part a combination of aromatic vegetables, e.g. onion, leek, garlic, shallots, fennel bulbs. I don’t use ginger for roasting since it turns hard and horrible (though you could use grated ginger). Herbs are a nice addition too.
1 to 2 parts other vegetables. Here you can use anything that is not too watery. Vary this by the season. In spring you might use asparagus or spring cabbage; in summer zucchini other summer squash, eggplants and peppers; in the fall or throughout the year, cauliflower, broccoli, turnips, rutabaga, daikon radish, brussel sprouts…whatever you like.

The harder and more solid the vegetable, the smaller and thinner you should cut it. Alternatively, you may want to pre-boil it for a few minutes. Lotus root and taro roots require parboiling, and if you parboil white potatoes, when you roast them they will be nice and crunchy on the outside and fluffy on the inside.

For every 4 cups of combined vegetables, add 1 tablespoon of olive oil or other oil, salt and pepper, and mix well. Spread out in a single layer on a baking sheet, and bake/roast for about 15-20 minutes.

Take it out and give it a stir around. At this point you can add some toppings - see below for suggestions. Roast for another 5-10 minutes.

Toppings and additions

This is a great side dish to a main protein like steak or roast chicken, but it can also be a complete one-dish meal by adding a protein rich topping. Some suggestions:

Cheese! Feta cheese is my favorite for this, but any cheese you like will do. Add at the stirring-up stage.
Plain whole or chopped nuts. Walnuts, almonds and pecans are especially suited for this I think. Add at the stirring-up stage to avoid burning
Miso-tahini paste with walnuts (go easy on the salt on the vegetables if you use this) Add at the stirring-up stage.
Cooked chickpeas or other beans - add at the beginning
Cut up sausage. If cooked, add at the stirring-up stage; if not, add at the beginning
Leftover meatloaf, crumbled up, with a sprinkle of cheese - add at the stirring-up stage

A couple of combination suggestions

A flowery vegetable combination: Broccoli florets, cauliflower florets, artichoke hearts, tiny potatoes or chunks of regular potato, chopped garlic, rosemary. Toss all with olive oil; top with some gorgonzola cheese.
A fall vegetable combination (the one pictured in the photo): Winter squash (kuri squash or Knirps used in the photo), fennel, leek, broccoli, garlic. This can be topped with cheese or Miso-tahini paste with walnuts.
A root vegetable combination: carrots, daikon radish, sweet potato, onion, garlic. Toss with olive oil and some red pepper flakes, salt and pepper. Optionally top with feta or other cheese, or go the sweet way and top with some sugar or honey.

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

maki — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 11:31:05 +0200

[From the archives: Today (September 23rd) is the first day of the fall o-higan (お彼岸), when ohagi or botamochi are offered to ones ancestors, as well as oneself! My mother and my grandmother always made these at home around this time of year - I love their not-too-sweet stickiness. O-higan ends on the 26th, so if you like wagashi, why not give these a try? Originally published March 2007.]

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.