favorites

A vegan version of nikujaga (Japanese meat and potatoes), plus how to remake Japanese recipes to make them vegan

maki — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 14:06:17 +0200

Nikujaga, stewed potatoes with meat, is a staple of Japanese home cooking. It’s filling and comforting, and appears quite frequently for dinner at our house. Recently though I’ve been making this vegan version more frequently, which is just as tasty as the meaty version. Thick fried tofu (atsuage) is the protein replacement, but it’s not just there for it’s nutritional benefits - I love the texture in a lot of dishes.

The recipe, plus some ideas on how to reform Japanese non-vegan recipes to make them vegan, after the jump.

Recipe: Potatoes stewed with fried tofu and green beans

Makes 4 servings as part of a Japanese meal

4 medium firm boiling type potatoes (not baking potatoes)
1 cup frozen green beans, or the equivalent amount of fresh green beans
1/2 small onion
1 to 2 squares of thick fried tofu (atsuage)
2 Tbs. sake
3 Tbs. soy sauce
2 Tbs. dark (grade B) maple syrup
1 Tbs. sesame oil

Peel and cut up the potatoes into small pieces. If using fresh green beans, cut off the tops and cut into pieces. Slice the onion.

Cover the fried tofu in boiling water, and drain. This gets rid of much of the surface oil.

Heat up a heavy-bottomed pan with the sesame oil. Add the onions and cook until translucent. Add the potato and tofu pieces, and sauté intil the oil coats the pieces well. Add the green beans and toss around some more.

Add just enough water to cover. Add the sake, soy sauce and maple syrup. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to about medium-low, put on a lid and let simmer until the potatoes are tender, about 10-15 minutes. To concentrate the flavors even more, take the lid off and simmer for an additional 10-15 minutes until the liquid is almost evaporated - this step is optional.

Serve hot or cold. The flavors mellow if you let it rest, which makes it very good for bento.

Notes

If you want bright green green beans, just add them in the last few minutes of cooking. I just add it with everything else because they taste better that way. (Sort of like the way green beans are cooked until they are almost falling apart in the South.)

This is even better if you use new potatoes.

Making non-vegan Japanese recipes vegan

If you compare this recipe to the classic nikujaga, the first thing you may notice is that there’s no meat. There is also no dashi stock used. Traditional dashi stock, which forms the basis of the majority of savory Japanese cooking, is not vegan, since one of the key ingredients is dried bonito (fish) flakes or niboshi (dried little sardines). Using a vegan dashi which uses just kombu seaweed and/or dried shiitake is an option. But it’s also possible in some cases to omit the dashi entirely, as in this recipe.

When you omit meat and dashi (or any soup stock), what you lose is a lot of umami. To make up for this, add ingredients that are inherently rich in umami or other flavoring ingredients. In the recipe above for example, the onion, sake, sesame oil, soy sauce and maple syrup add plenty of flavor to the dish - and without dashi the flavor of the potatoes comes through better too.

And about that maple syrup: Since Japanese recipes often call for sugar, using a flavorful sweetener instead of plain white sugar is a way to add some extra oomph. Raw cane sugar, brown sugar, palm sugar, maple syrup and honey are some options. Dark maple syrup goes very well with Japanese flavors.

(Incidentally, if you’re a North American visiting friends elsewhere, maple syrup makes a great gift because it’s really expensive over the pond!)

Wine, cheese and walnut whole wheat bread using the Almost No-Knead method

maki — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 15:18:57 +0200

More than a year ago, a method of making bread that required no kneading at all was published in the New York Times, and swept through the food blogging world like wildfire. Here is that original recipe (login required). I tried it too, and while it did produce a very nice loaf, I found it rather lacking in character. So I adapted the method for making desem bread, a natural-yeast (no yeast added) bread that has a wonderful flavor.

However, desem is a very labor-intensive bread, even if the loaves themselves are made the no-knead way. The desem starter itself has to be nurtured and fed continuously. I haven’t managed to keep one alive for more than a few months at a time - when I get too busy, or go away or something, the desem dies and I have to start over. (I’ve tried freezing it and things and the results have been rather mixed.)

Late last year, Cook’s Illustrated came out with a recipe they called Almost No-Knead Bread. Some people have taken to calling it No-Knead 2.0, but the original is called Almost No-Knead. Here’s a link to the recipe that doesn’t require registration, though if they close that loophole you can register there for 14 days for free. I haven’t seen Almost No-Knead rage through the food blogging world with quite the enthusiasm that the original No-Knead did, but it is an interesting development. There is some minimal kneading involved, but nothing too taxing.

Here are the key differences between the No-Knead and the Almost No-Knead methods:

Beer (lager) and a little vinegar are added to Almost No-Knead, to add some character and flavor. (One of the main criticisms of Original No-Knead was that the bread was a bit bland.)
Almost No-Knead is less hydrated. No-Knead calls for 1 5/8 cups of water per 3 cups of flour, and Almost calls for 1 1/4 cups of liquid in the form of 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons of water and 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons of lager. This allows for easier handling of the dough.
Almost No-Knead requires a little kneading and shaping of the loaf before the second rise.
An innovation added by Almost No-Knead is a sort of sling made of kitchen parchment paper, which is put under the loaf with the ends hanging out of the cast iron pot the loaf is baked in. This allows for the load to be taken out of that red hot pot easily.

I find that the No-Knead method produces a slightly better, more crackly crust, probably due to the higher hydration. But the taste of Almost No-Knead is indeed better, more tangy and complex, though not as deeply complex as a true sourdough. Both have that sort of silky, slightly doughy, open and moist texture that is much desired in ‘artisanal’ type breads.

Everyday Almost No-Knead

I’ve tried the original Almost No-Knead as well as the variations (I did buy a 1-year subscription to Cook’s Illustrated by the way, it is worth while) such as Seeded Rye and Pecan and Cranberries. The latter one is really good.

The schedule for making the bread that fits our daily life goes like this: I mix up the bread late in the evening, around 10 or 11. It requires an 18 hour rise, but it’s not too picky in that regard - an hour less or more doesn’t seem to affect things too much. The next day, around 5 or 6 whenever someone gets home if we are out, it’s punched down and kneaded (I like to add the additives at this stage rather than at the start) and given a 2 hour rise, then baked. We have the bread for dinner or for breakfast, or both. If you only have time to bake on weekends, do the bread mixing on Saturday to have fresh baked bread on Sunday, counting back at least 22 hours (1/2 hour for mixing/kneading, 18 for the first rise, 2 for the second rise, and 1 1/2 hours for cooling and such) from when you want to eat the bread.

Taking it even further

After I’d made the lager and vinegar flavored loaves several times, I started to wonder if adding wine would work. I used to love a bread called baguette au vin et rosette, pictured here, a crusty and hearty baguette with bits of rosette sausage and wine actually in the dough. The baker who made it unfortunately sold up and moved on, so I can’t get that bread anymore. After several tries, I think I have hit upon a combination that really works. So after a long preamble, here’s the recipe. Note that the hydration (amount of water) is a bit different from the original Almost No-Knead.

Recipe: Almost No-Knead whole wheat wine bread with walnuts and cheese

2 cups (10 oz / 280g) all-purpose flour
1 cup (5 oz / 140g) whole wheat flour
1/4 to 1/3 tsp. dry yeast
1 1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cups (177ml) lukewarm water
1/4 cup dry red wine
3/4 cups of roughly chopped walnuts
1/2 cup finely diced aged Gruyère, or other aged hard cheese

In a bowl, mix together the flours, yeast and salt. (Note about the yeast: I really don’t know what rapid-rise yeast is in German, and there’s only one kind of dry yeast sold here commonly, so I add just a tad more of that, and it works fine.) Add the liquids and mix until it forms a shaggy ball. It looks like this - the red wine does make it a light purple in color, but after it’s baked it’s much less noticeable (as you can see in the top photo).

Cover the ball and let it rise in a warm place for about 18 hours. (The most reliably warm place in our house is on top of an old PC tower case, turned on of course.)

After 18 hours or so are up, the dough should be risen and puffy. Knead in the walnuts and cheese, and form a ball again. Make a sort of sling out of parchment paper, but cutting a length of it off and folding it into half or thirds. Set this under the ball, in a pot or skillet, and cover the whole thing with a large bowl turned upside down over it, or plastic film. You may want to consult the step by step illustrations on the Cook’s Illustrated site for this part, or the video.)

Set your timer to 90 minutes, and when it beeps put an enamelled cast-iron pot in the oven and set it to 500°F / 260°C, or a bit less than that if you have a convection oven. (I do, and I set it to 250°C.) Set your timer to 30 minutes.

Take out the red-hot pot carefully, take the dough by the sling, and drop it in the pot. Bake for about 30 minutes, and take off the lid; if it looks too pale for you at this point, bake for an additional 10 minutes or so.

When done, take the bread out using the sling, and let cool on a rack. (My cooling rack is my grill!)

The wine really makes this bread taste interesting. A slice of this plus a salad or soup makes for a very satisfying lunch, and it also makes a great sandwich.

Variations

You can leave out the cheese for a walnut bread, or use pecans instead. Chopped up black olives are nice too, instead of the cheese. Or leave all out for a plain wine bread which goes well with just about anything, but especially - you guessed it - cheese.

One addition that has not worked for me so far is adding ham or sausage, a la the baguette au vin et rosette. Whatever ham or sausage I’ve tried has made the bread turn overly sausage-y. The experimentation on that front continues.

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.)

I have seen the peanut brittle light, and it shines from Virginia

maki — Tue, 15 May 2007 10:37:04 +0200

One of the (many) food obsessions I have is nut brittles. Peanut brittle, macademia nut brittle, almond brittle (which, when pulverized, turns into praline). I love that combination of caramel and nut flavor. Peanut brittle is the most handy kind to get a hold of, and make. I make it as often as my teeth and waistline allow.

But, I realized yesterday that I have never had truly good peanut brittle.

Max was in Virginia last week for business. Driving down a secondary highway, he happened to pass by Calvin L Adams Country Store, which also sported a large sign saying Adams Peanuts. Knowing my fondness for peanut brittle, he got a bag.

At first I was not wowed - it looks quite plain, in fact, with a dull rather than gloss finish. But one bite into a piece, and I knew that this was peanut brittle nirvana. It contains whole, unskinned peanuts. The brittle part is light and airy, not hard or chewy at all. It breaks into little pieces as soon as you crunch down. The not-too-sweet caramel of the brittle, the peanutty peanuts, and the very slight bitterness of the skins combine to form a heavenly experience.

How could I have lived for so long, not knowing that peanut brittle could be so good? I curse my wasted life so far.

And, joy of joys - Adams’ Peanuts has a web site! Though, worryingly, they don’t list peanut brittle on their Products list. If they don’t ship peanut brittle, a trip to Waverly, Virginia is in my very near future.

Here are some photos of Calvin L. Adams Country Store, aka Adams’ Peanuts:

The interior. The hams, the hams!

Mr. Lionel Adams, the proprietor:

A couple more are on flickr.

Japanese beef curry (Curry Rice)

maki — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 14:43:13 +0100

Japanese curry belongs to the group of typically Japanese foods that have origins in European cuisine, called yohshoku. Curry is tremendously popular in Japan - it's on the menu at just about every 'family' restaurant and department store restaurants, and there are curry-only restaurants as well as ones that specialize in high class yohshoku in general.

Japanese curry, called curry rice (or kareh raisu) since it's always served with rice, is not much like the curries from India, Thai or other places with better known curries around the world. The best way to describe it is probably to say it's like a English style stew with curry. (It's not at all like the curries you get in modern Britain, which are firmly in the Indian or Pakistani curry families.)

If you've ever been to a Japanese grocery store, you've probably seen the blocks or bags of curry base taking up an inordinate amount of shelf space. Competition amongst curry base makers in Japan is fierce. The bases are pretty convenient to use, but these days I use them less and less, since I discovered that making curry properly from scratch is not that much more effort than making curry with a readymade curry base. Commercial curry bases contain things like sugar or corn syrup as ingredients, plus some of them use mystery fats (always check the ingredient lists). I add sweetness just via the vegetables, especially a huge mound of slowly sautéed onions.

Either way, to get the most flavorful curry takes a long time. This is definitely a slow-cook meal.

This recipe for beef curry can be adapted to other kinds of meat, or to vegetarian options too. I've included instructions for using a store bought curry base as well as making your own curry roux base.

Japanese style beef curry

Makes about 6 to 8 servings.

450-500g / about 1 lb stewing beef cubes (chuck works well; it should be a cut with a bit of fat in it and not too sinewy)
6 large onions, or about 6 cups sliced
3 cloves garlic
An adult thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger
2 cups of crushed tomatoes (1 small can, or 400g)
1 beef or vegetable stock cube (I prefer Knorr)
1 bay leaf
1 star anise
2-3 Tbs. garam masala (see notes)
3-4 large carrots
1 medium eating-type apple
3-4 medium potatoes
Oil or butter
Optional: 1 cup frozen green peas
Salt and pepper

For the curry roux:

3 Tbs. butter, ghee, clarified butter or oil, or a mixture
4 Tbs. white flour
1 1/2 to 2 Tbs. curry powder, or more to taste (see notes)

To serve with:

Plain white steamed Japanese rice, or plain brown rice
Garnishes: fukijin zuke, rakkyou

Special equipment recommended: a heavy-bottomed enamelled cast iron pot (Le Creuset etc.) (but any decently heavy pot will do. A thin walled pot leads to burned curry. Burned curry ranks near the top of things that are Not Nice.)

If the meat is in one big chunk, cut into cubes about 2 cm / 1 inch square. Pat dry with paper towels, and brown in a little oil on all sides in a frying pan. Set aside.

Slice the onions thinly. Grate the ginger and either grate or finely chop the garlic. (A microplane is great for this task, if you have one.) Peel and cut the carrots into chunks. Don't peel the potatoes yet: this will come later.

Heat your heavy-bottomed pot over medium heat, and heat up some butter, ghee or oil. (Butter or ghee will add some richness but oil is fine - you will barely notice the subtle difference since the curry will overwhelm it.) Add the onions and a pinch of salt, and lower the heat to medium-low. Now comes a period of long, slow cooking of the onions that can take up to an hour or so (the salt helps it along as it extracts the moisture in the onions). At the end you want to end up with a much reduced mass of onion that is a light caramel brown in color, as in the photo.

Once the onions have reached this stage, add the ginger and garlic and cook a few more minutes. Add the canned tomato and 6 cups of water, the browned beef, the stock cube, the bay leaf and the star anise. (If you are particular you can put these in a bit of cheese cloth or a tea ball for easy extraction later.)

Peel and grate the apple and stir in. (This is optional, but adds to the depth of flavor.)

Bring up to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer for at least 1 hour, or more if your meat is a bit tough.

About 30 minutes into the cooking process, dry-roast about a tablespoon of garam masala powder in a small frying pan until it starts to get very fragant, and ad to the stew pot. Add the carrots around then too.

In the meantime, make the curry roux. In a small frying pan, melt the butter or ghee or clarified butter (note that ghee is basically clarified butter) and heat until any foaming subsides.

Add the flour, and cook the mixture over medium-low heat, stirring constantly, until it becomes a light brown in color. (See these very detailed instructions for roux if you aren't sure.)

Take the pan off the heat, and add the curry powder (the more the hotter.) Stir until the whole kitchen and beyond smells like curry. Set aside.

When the meat is about as tender as you want, peel the potatoes, cut them into chunks and add to the curry. Continue simmering until the potatoes are tender.

Take the pot off the heat and fish out the bay leaf and star anise. Stir in the roux carefully until it's completely melted into the stew and the liquid is thick and very brown. Return to the heat and simmer a few more minutes.

At this stage you can dry roast another tablespoonful or so of garam masala and add it to the curry.

At the last minute, add the optional frozen green peas, and stir - they should cook almost instantaneously. Serve immediately.

There are two ways of serving curry in the "yohshoku restaurant" way. One is to put the curry in a sauce boat, and serve the rice separately. The other is to put the rice on the plate, and cover just one half with curry, You can of course just pour the curry right on the mound of rice.

Usual garnishes are fukijin zuke, a sweet mixture of mystery pickled vegetables, and rakkyou, small pickled shallots. Other garnishes include chutney and grated cheese.

Notes

I don't go to the trouble of grinding my own curry and garam masala, much as I'd like to in theory. I use pre-ground powders bought at a store that caters to Indian and Sri Lankan expats. The most common Japanese brand of curry powder is S & B, but the Indian kind is quite a bit cheaper and just as good quality. Garam masala is not commonly sold in Japanese groceries anyway, but it is of course in Indian groceries.

Update: I have written up the Japanese curry powder formula for people who would like to experiment with mixing their own. (Includes a recipe for garam masala too.)

If you want it to be yellower, add some turmeric. If you want it hotter, add some chili pepper powder, or more curry powder.

Instead of, or in addition to, the grated apple, you can add some chutney, a tablespoon or so of honey, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and even a bit of soy sauce or miso.

Using a readymade curry base

If you are using a curry base instead of making your own curry roux, just add it in exactly the same way near the end of the cooking process, making sure to take the pot off the heat first. If you have the block that looks like a chocolate bar type, break it up into smaller chunks and stir in to the stew mix until all is melted. The bagged powder type melts in faster. The curry should not be stewed for a very lengthy time after adding the base or spices or the flavors will dissipate somewhat.

Many Japanese housewives individualize their curries by combining two or more commercial bases.

Using other meats

Pork curry is made in the same way as beef curry, but you may want to try making the curry a bit hotter (by adding more curry powder or chili pepper powder).

Chicken curry is best made with the dark meat parts (thigh works great). I also prefer to take the skin off first - curry-stewed chicken skin is not that nice. The stewing time for chicken curry is shorter since you don't want the chicken to get dried out.

Quick and easy ground beef curry

If this all sounds like too much work, you can still make a quick and easy curry using ground beef or other ground meat, and a commercial curry base. (Commercial curry base blocks are so big because they have a ton of flavor enhancing ingredients in them already.) Adam Kuban has posted a quick and fairly easy method for making a curry this way, though I would recommend sautéeing the onions a bit longer than he does, and adding the potatoes somewhat later in the process.

If you are in a huge curry..I mean hurry, you can buy readymade curry in a pouch. They vary quite a lot in quality so try some until you find a brand you like.

Making it vegetarian

You can omit the meat and use oil instead of butter or ghee, and have a vegetarian curry. If you want some protein, try a can of chickpeas. Cooked soy beans also fit very well. You can go the TVP - quorn route if you like too. Or go for an all-vegetable curry and add more carrots, or some sliced eggplant (aubergine), cubed turnip, etc.

Freezing curry

Curry freezes and reheats very well, as long as you leave out the potatoes. Frozen potato turns into a mealy, watery, inedible mush. Just add some boiled potatoes to the reheated curry. Since it does take a long time to cook it does make sense to make a big batch at a time and freeze extra for quick meals in the future.

Reading: The Way To Cook, my all-time favorite cookbook

maki — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 19:38:20 +0100

While I have a list of cookbooks and other food-related books that I own and love over on my Amazon Store, there are three food oriented books that I use, read and would recommend above all others - all for different reasons. I've talked about two of these in some depth previously - Hungry Planet: What The World Eats by Peter Menzel and The Art of Eating, which contains some of the best works by my all-time favorite food writer Mary Frances Kennedy (M.F.K.) Fisher. Either would make a fine gift for a food lover or just someone who loves to read great books - or in the case of Hungry Planet, look at great photography too.

However, I've never gotten around to talking about my all time favorite cook book. Saying that one cookbook stands above all others is something, because at last count I owned around 120 cookbooks. I've only glanced through quite a few of them, have used a couple of recipes from others, but the one cookbook I keep going back to again and again for different things is The Way To Cook, by Julia Child.

The Way To Cook was originally published in 1989. This was a time when low-fat was the In thing, and people were scarfing up food with dubious 'low-fat' claims like Snackwells and relying more and more on prepared food and takeout. It was also a time when the world of restaurant cooking was experiencing a backlash against nouvelle cuisine. The Way To Cook was a perfect antedote to both movements. While Julia Child's previous works had mostly stuck to French cooking, The Way To Cook roamed a lot further than that. It had the simple message that home cooking was good for you, body and soul.

It covers basic cooking methods, like how to braise meats or vegetables, how to bake bread, how to make various kinds of pastry doughs, and so on. It has recipes for Boston Baked Beans (and the steamed Brown Bread that traditionally accompanies it), making your own corned beef, and peanut brittle, as well as various French classics from Tarte Tatin to a Salade Niçoise. It is simply a compedium of delicious food, whatever its origins (though strictly from the world of European/American cuisines - this was in the days before Asian Fusion). It's filled with little nuggets of wisdom from Julia, such as her advice for getting rid of the substance in beans that causes flatulence - to bring the beans to a boil, then throw away the water, and start again with fresh water to cook. To people who are worried about losing some nutritional value down the drain she advises to "just eat a minimally greater amount of beans".

The reason I love this cookbook so much though is that it just works. And, it doesn't just work for me - it works for everyone who follows the crystal clear instructions. I can't remember how many times I've given this book as a gift, and everyone who's received it has raved about it. Whether the recipient is an experienced cook or a beginner, this book fits - it's neither too complicated nor does it talk down to the reader. The photographs are clear and to the point too. I use the recipes in here for my pastry doughs, my favorite pizza dough, for coleslaw, for cakes of all kinds...the list goes on and on.

I've looked, and own, many other books that purport to tell me all I need to know about cooking various basics, but I have yet to find anything that surpasses The Way To Cook. It's not an exaggeration to say that it's made me a much better cook, more than any other cookbook I own. If you're stuck for what to get for a food loving friend or relative, you really can't go wrong with this classic volume.

Ratatouille

maki — Fri, 22 Sep 2006 16:18:29 +0200

Although ratatouille seems synonymous with summer, perhaps because it comes from sunny Provence, I think it's really a dish to make right now, in early fall. This is when the essential ingredients - eggplants (aubergines), fresh tomatoes, zucchini (courgettes), sweet onions, and peppers - are all at their peak. You can get all of those things year-round nowadays of course, but vegetables in season are always just a bit sweeter.

Even the humble eggplant, which doesn't seem as season-sensitive as tomatoes, are at their peak in the fall. In Japan, there's a saying, akinasu yome ni kuwasuna which means "Don't let the daughter-in-law eat fall eggplants". There are two theories to where that saying came from: one is that eggplants are so delicious at this time of year that the poor daughter-in-law shouldn't be allowed to partake. The other theory is that eggplants are considered to be "cooling" vegetables, and women who want to become pregnant should not eat food that cools the body. In any case, fresh, tender eggplant that isn't over-mature and full of hard seeds is really delicious.

A really great ratatouille is not a vegetable stew, as some cookbooks say - it's more like a vegetable casserole. Each vegetable is pre-cooked, then brought together for the final simmering. Because of the preparation involved, making a proper ratatouille takes about 3 1/2 hours from start to finish, making it a great weekend project. Get the freshest ingredients you can in the morning, and put them together as ratatouille in the afternoon, to eat for dinner or for lunch the next day.

The smells that fill the house while you're cooking this are irresistible.

This recipe has the traditional Provençal flavorings of thyme and oregano, but you can also give it all kinds of twists, some of which I've described in the variations.

Ratatouille is very versatile. It can be a condiment, a side dish, a pasta sauce, or even a sandwich filling. Here I have made a ratatouille sandwich with brebis, a kind of fresh sheep's milk cheese. Goat's cheese also works very well.

My version of ratatouille is a bit less oily than some other recipes, since I pre-salt three of the vegetables to expel some of the moisture before cooking. I also pre-roast the eggplant and the peppers instead of sautéing them. This has another benefit - while those two vegetables are cooking in the oven, I have the stovetop free to deal with the three others. There are a lot of steps to follow, but it's not technically challenging to do.

Incidentally, I am really looking forward to the Disney/Pixar movie Ratatouille next summer. If you haven't yet, go watch the trailer now! Then come back and read on for the recipe below the fold...

Ratatouille

This is the easiest amount to make for me since I don't have a very large kitchen. It makes about 5-6 cups of ratatouille. You can double the amount if you want to - I wouldn't make less, since it seems a bit pointless to put so much effort and time into making a tiny portion. (Ratatouille will last in the refrigerator for at least a week, and freezes pretty well too.) The point is to have an equal amount, in weight, not volume, of the five vegetables. I've given approximate volume amounts in case you don't have a kitchen scale and want to eyeball it.

500g / a bit more than 1 lb. eggplant (aubergines) (About 8 cups raw after slicing)
500g / a bit more than 1 lb. zucchini (courgettes) (I like the green ones for color contrast) (About 4 cups raw after slicing)
500g / a bit more than 1 lb. large sweet onions (About 3 cups raw after slicing)
500g / a bit more than 1 lb. sweet red or orange peppers (About 4 cups raw after slicing)
1-kg / a bit more than 2 lbs. of ripe red tomatoes (this will become less once it's skinned and de-seeded) (After skinning and de-seeding and chopping, about 3 cups)
4 garlic cloves
Extra virgin olive oil
Salt
Black pepper
1 tsp. dried thyme
1 tsp. dried oregano
2 bay leaves

Equipment needed/recommended:

A kitchen scale
A saucepan or pot
A large sauté pan or wok
A sharp knife and a chopping board
A spatula
5 bowls or receptacles large enough to hold your 5 basic vegetables
A glass oven casserole dish, or a shallow oven-safe pan with a non-reactive surface (enamel, ceramic or glass)
Paper towels or clean kitchen towels
Cooking parchment paper
Aluminum foil
A large spoon, or a turkey baster

Fill the pot/pan with water and bring to a boil.

If you have very large eggplants, cut it into half or quarters lengthwise. Slice about 1/2cm - 1/8th inch thick. Put into a bowl, and sprinkle with a little salt all over. Toss.

Slice the zucchini to the same thickness, more or less, as the eggplant. Put into another bowl, sprinkle with a little salt and toss.

Slice the onions very thinly. Put into yet another bowl, and sprinkle with a little salt all over. Toss.

Leave all of the above vegetables about 20 minutes.

Put the tomatoes whole into the boiling water. Take them out after about 40 seconds. Peel off the skins, halve and scoop out the seeds. Chop roughly and weigh them.

De-seed and slice the peppers. Spread on a paper-lined baking sheet. Sprinkle with a little olive oil. Prepare another baking sheet with paper, for the eggplant.

Peel and then chop the garlic very finely.

Pre-heat the oven to 180°C / 350°F.

Drain the eggplant. Take handfuls at a time into a clean kitchen towel or several layers of paper towels, and squeeze out the moisture. Spread on the other baking sheet that you've prepared, and sprinkle with a little olive oil.

Put the eggplant and the peppers in the oven and bake for 20 minutes, until tender but not crispy. Stir around once or twice during this time. (The peppers may need an additional 5-10 minutes, depending on how thinly you sliced them.)

Drain and squeeze the zucchini and the onions in the same way as the eggplant.

Heat up your sauté pan or wok with a little olive oil. Fry the zucchini in the oil until lightly browned. Remove.

Add the onion to the pan (plus a little more oil if needed), and sauté until limp and translucent. Remove.

Put in the garlic, and sauté briefly. Add the tomato pulp, and break it up with a spatula. Add the bay leaves, thyme, oregano, and freshly ground pepper. (No salt -remember you've already used quite a lot to draw out the water in the vegetables.) Simmer for about 10 minutes over medium-high heat. Take out the bay leaves.

In the meantime, your roasted vegetables should be done. Remove them from the oven. In your glass or ceramic casserole dish, put in half the onions in a layer. Follow with a layer of zucchini, then eggplant, then pepper, then the tomato pulp. Repeat for the rest of the vegetables. (You can reserve a few of the eggplant and zucchini slices to decorate the top.)

Cover the casserole dish loosely with foil, and place on a baking sheet. Bake for about 20 minutes at the same temperature (180°C / 350°F).

Take the foil off, and make a flat ball out of it. Carefully put it under one corner of the casserole dish, to tilt it up slightly. Make a dent in the opposing corner. It will quickly fill up with liquid. Take that liquid with a spoon or a turkey baster, and baste the vegetables (meaning, pour the liquid back over the top of everything). Put the dish and baking sheet back in the oven. Continue baking and basting every 15-20 minutes until the liquid is has reduced down to less than half of what you started out with. This may take an hour or more, depending on how juicy your vegetables were. A glass casserole dish makes it easy to see how much liquid there is. If the top starts to get too brown, put a piece of foil loosely over it. This basting and reducing is the most tedious part of the whole process, but it really helps to concentrate the flavors.

Take out of the oven. Carefully tilt the dish and pour off as much remaining liquid as you can. Put the liquid into a small pan and reduce over a high heat, stirring, until it's syrupy. Pour back over the vegetables.

Let stand for at least 20 minutes before serving. It's also delicious at room temperature or chilled.

Variations and serving ideas

Asian-flavor ratatouille: omit the thyme, oregano and bay leaves. Add a piece of ginger when you sauté the garlic. Season with a little soy sauce, and sesame seed oil. Alternatively, add about 1/3 of miso loosened up with some hot water to the tomato mixture before assembling for baking.
Add some cooked bacon pieces to the baking dish (this makes a great one-dish meal served on pasta)
Make some small round croutons from a slice baguette by spreading them on a baking sheet and sprinkling with oil. Serve the croutons with the ratatouille.
Serve with rice - either plain or a pilaf.
Add some lemon juice to well-chilled ratatouille, and serve with greens of your choice (arugula is great)

For the ratatouille and brebis or chevre sandwich, halve a crusty loaf, sprinkle the cut sides with olive oil, and toast or grill. Pour a couple of tablespoons of any liquid that you can scoop up from the ratatouille onto the bread. Pile on the ratatouille (room temperature is best), and add some pieces of cheese. (The one I used here came in little balls.) You can grill this if you like at this point, or just have as-is. You can also press it into a panini. To bring to work or on a picnic, press together well and wrap tightly in wax paper. The ratatouille flavor will have penetrated the bread nicely by lunchtime.

Weekend Project: Poach a chicken (or two)

maki — Fri, 28 Jul 2006 14:53:38 +0200

The weekend project is back after a brief hiatus! Before I proceed however, I'd like to alert you to the charity blogging efforts of Ms. Sam over at Becks and Posh, who is participating in the Blogathon charity fundraising event tomorrow (that's Saturday). She is even offering prizes! If you're in the San Francisco area in particular, be sure to go over and donate.

After you have donated to a worthy cause and are basking in the glow of your own goodness, it's time to focus attention back on your own (and your family's) food needs. As I've mentioned in the past few days, the summer heatwave makes it hard to get up the appetite, let alone cook anything. One thing I can always eat is a fresh, cool chicken salad. The key ingredient for a good chicken salad is homemade, moist poached chicken. The best tasting poached chicken is made by cooking a whole, preferably organic bird, or two of them if you want and have a big enough pot. The chicken(s) can then be stored in the refrigerator for a few days or for longer in the freezer. You'll also end up with a bonus potful of chicken stock.

Poaching chickens is quite easy, but if you overcook it you will end up with stringy, tough, dried out meat, which is not too nice. The method I use results in very moist meat every time. I think I read the method of leaving the chicken to cook in the residual heat of the pot first in Today's Cooking, my favorite Japanese food magazine.

The flavor of the chicken is controlled by the aromatic ingredients you put in the pot with it. In my case I always use onion, celery, ginger, bay leaf, parsley, and lemon: this gives a very clean and fairly neutral tasting chicken and stock that can be used for any dish that calls for cold chicken. Note that no salt is used, because salt can toughen up the meat. The good thing is that you don't have to watch the pot after the first few minutes, thus getting you out of your hot kitchen. Don't forget to set the timer so you go and do what you have to do to the pot when called upon.

The one messy part of the process is de-skinning and de-boning the chicken, which is most easily accomplished with your hands. Other than that it's very simple to do. And once it's done you have enough meat ready to go for several meals, depending on the size or quantity of the birds you cooked. Some ideas for using cold poached chicken include:

Salad, with the classic mayonnaise, or with any other dressing (Try chicken salad as a filling for choux buns...delicous!)
On hiyashi chuuka instead of ham. The sesame dressing for hiyashi chuuka makes a great salad dressing, by the way!
For sandwiches
For tacos and wraps

You can also heat up the chicken briefly and toss it into spaghetti sauce, etc.

How to poach a chicken (or two)

1 large or 2 small, organic and happy chickens (I use 2 1.5kg or approx. 3 lb each organic free range chickens)
1 celery stalk, including the leaves
1 large onion
1 bay leaf
1 thumbsize piece of fresh ginger
1 bunch of parsley
1/2 organic lemon

Equipment needed: a pot that is large enough to hold the chickens plus water to cover, with a tight fitting lid. An enameled cast-iron or heavy stainless steel pot are ideal.

Remove any giblets, etc. from the birds and wash them under running water. (If your birds came with neck pieces you can add that to the water for additional flavor to the stock.) Place in the pot.

Peel the onion and cut into quarters. Slice the ginger fairly thickly. Put all the vegetables. bay leaf and lemon into the pot. Fill with water enough to completely cover everything plus about 2 cm / an inch.

Bring the pot to a boil on high heat. When it's come up to boiling point, lower the heat to medium-low (it should still be bubbling but not rolling). Skim off all the scum that comes up for 15 minutes. At the end of that time, turn off the heat and cover the pot with a tight fitting lid, and let it sit for at least 1 hour, up to 90 minutes. (If you are using a ceramic or electric stove, pull the pot off the heat.)

Open the pot and cut into your bird around the legs. It should be perfectly cooked through, with no red or pink, but still moist. If it still seems raw, put the pot back on the stove, bring up to a boil again, then turn the heat off and leave with the lid on for an additional 30 minutes.

Take the chickens out of the pot, letting the liquid drain back into the pot (careful, it's very hot!). Let cool enough to handle. Remove the skin, and take off the meat in as big chunks as you can manage.

Store the meat, well covered, in the refrigerator for up to 3 days, or freeze it.

If you want to keep the stock, fish out the flavoring ingredients and put it in the refrigerator until it's cold and the fat has congealed on top. Strain and store in the freezer until you need chicken stock in a recipe.

Hiyashi chuuka: Japanese Chinese-style cold noodles

maki — Wed, 05 Jul 2006 12:39:00 +0200

Summer in most parts of Japan is hot and very humid, so cold foods are very popular. There are a lot of cold noodle dishes, such as chilled soba noodles and thin wheat noodes (hiyamugi or so-men). I love them all, but I think my favorite is hiyashi chuuka, which is Chinese-style cold noodles as interpreted by the Japanese.

Hiyashi chuuka is a one-dish meal. The cold noodles are served with a variety of vegetables and meat on top. You can really use anything, as long as it tastes good cold. Here I've used cucumber ribbons, some roast ham and pork slices thinly cut, and tomato. There's a bit of scrambled egg and some pickled sushi ginger too (since I was out of the brightly red beni sho-ga.) The key to bringing it all together is the slightly vinegary, sesame-rich dressing or gomadare. It's really a sort of pasta salad. Noodle shops in Japan don't serve hiyashi chuuka during the rest of the year, so the signs announcing "Now serving hiyashi chuuka" signal that summer has arrived.

Let me touch on cucumber ribbons. They seem like a really fancy thing, but are very easy if you use a vegetable peeler, and look like you spent a lot of time and effort. I can't use the vertical kind of peeler at all, being left handed, but with a horizontal type peeler like the one pictured here, all I do is to take long, thin slices off a regular English-type cucumber (the kind that comes shrink-wrapped in plastic from the Netherlands), turning the thing as I peel, until I end up with the inner core of mostly seeds, which I just throw away.

Now, about the cold noodles. Unlike Western style cold pasta dishes, where the noodles are meant to be cooled naturally, in Japanese cooking the noodles are rinsed repeatedly in cold water, to both cool them off and to get rid of any surface starch. If you're Italian the thought of rinsing noodles may make you shudder, but it's critical here. Here is a pudgy little hand washing the noodles under cold running water.

You actually scrub (gently, so you don't break the noodles) the strands under running water, until you don't feel any sort of stickiness on the surface. Once the noodles reach this state, you drain them thoroughly before proceeding. This washing stage is critical to making good Japanese (or Japanese-style Chinese) cold noodles.

For the noodles, try to find thin, flat egg noodles at an Asian food store. Thin linguine can be a substitute, though it will have a very different texture from the Asian noodles. Remember to salt the water well if you go with that: Italian pasta doesn't have salt in it but Asian noodles usually do. If you can't be bothered with making the sauce and things and live near a Japanese market, the Chuukazanmi brand of instant hiyashi chuuka pictured here is very good, and comes with little packs of delicious readymade sauce. You do still have to rinse the noodles.

Hiyashi-chuuka with gomadare (sesame sauce)

For about 4 main course sized servings:

1 Tbs. rice vinegar or cider vinegar
1 Tbs. soy sauce
1 tsp. sugar
2 Tbs. water, or chicken stock, or dashi stock (water with soup granules is fine here)
2 Tbs raw sesame seeds, or 1 Tbs tahini
2 tsp. dark sesame oil
1 Tbs. dry mustard powder reconstituted with enough water to make a paste
300g / 10 oz. dried Chinese egg noodles, or hiyashi chuuka noodles, or thin linguine
1 cucumber, cut into ribbons (see above)
2 cups or so of thinly cut roast ham, or roast pork, or cooked chicken
2 small tomatoes, de-seeded and cut into thin wedges
Optional: 1 scrambled egg
Optional: some pickled sushi ginger (gari) or bright red pickled shredded ginger (beni sho-ga)

To make the sauce: If you're using sesame seeds, toast them in a small pan until they start to pop. Remove from the heat immediately. In a mortar and pestle or a spice grinder, grind up the sesame roughly. Combine the sesame seeds or tahini, vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, water or stock, and sesame oil and mix well. Taste and adjust the amount of soy sauce, sugar or vinegar if needed. (You can make this spicy at this point by adding some crushed red pepper flakes.)

In the meantime, heat up a large pot of water to boil. If using linguine, put salt in the boiling water. Cook the noodles of your choice in the water just until it's al dente. The cooking time will vary according to what kind of noodles you're using. Do not cook until the noodles are mushy.

Drain the noodles, then put them back in the pot. Fill the pot with cold running water, and rinse the noodles well (see above technique) until there's no starchiness to them. Drain well.

To serve, put a mound of noodles on each plate - plates with rims, or soup dishes, are ideal here. Arrange the vegetables, meat, egg and ginger attractively on top. Pour over the sauce. Serve a small dollop of the mustard on the side of the plate.

To eat, mix the noodles well, adding a bit of the mustard if desired.

Fun With Brioche

maki — Sat, 03 Jun 2006 12:24:37 +0200

Brioche bread is so delicate, light and buttery that is just one tiny step removed from being a pastry. Plain brioche bread is delicious on its own, toasted or with loads of jam. But brioche dough also makes an ideal casing for all kinds of fillings both savory and sweet. It's my favorite dough for making anything en croute, as well as for sweet filled breads that are so nice for a brunch party.

Here I would like to introduce you to two types of filled brioche. One is a party-sized pain au chocolat of sorts; brioche dough filled with dark chocolate and chopped hazelnuts, then shaped into any kind of shape that strikes your fancy. (A traditional pain au chocolate (which literally means 'chocolate bread' is a small bread, usually made of croissant dough though I've seen other buttery doughs used, and filled with chocolate.) It's really perfect for a brunch party, and makes a great alternative to a traditional cake at a childrens' party. Here's a slice that shows the still-meltingly soft chocolate inside. The dark chocolate marries so well with the golden tenderness of the brioche.

The other is a brioche loaf filled with a little mustard and one or two fat, garlicky sausages. The one in the photograph here is topped with a simple braid, but again you can make this into any shape you like. It's a great picnic bread or buffet-party item. For the one here, I put in two sausages since that's what I had on hand, and it unintentionally came out looking like a little car.

I made the brioche-house pictured here for Easter. I put two little bunny heads on the house (one is peeking from the door, the other around the side), but they ended up looking just like lumps. Nevertheless, the house was a huge hit. It's filled with a mixture of dark and light chocolate.

Unlike other kinds of bread, I've never had a problem making brioche. The one thing to remember about brioche dough is that it is loaded with butter, just like a pastry dough. Therefore, it is best handled cool. This means that you need to give it plenty of time, and to let the dough rise in the cool of the refigerator over several hours, preferably overnight. If you are planning to serve your brioche at a Sunday brunch, start the process on Saturday morning. If you're new to bread baking, this probably goes against just about everything you've read about raising bread at a warm temperature and so on, but yeast does it work at cool temperatures too - just at a slower pace. Proofing the dough in the refrigerator gives you a smooth, workable dough, with little pockets of butter all throughout.

I make brioche with a food processor; this has the advantage of keeping all the ingredients relatively cool, as opposed to hand-kneading which transfers your body heat to the dough. I just do the final kneading parts by hand. You can also use a dough mixer or mix by hand of course, and I have given instructions for both the food processor and hand methods. If at any point the dough gets too gooey-buttery and soft, just put it back in the fridge until it's cool enough to handle again.

The following recipe is adapted from one of my kitchen bibles, Julia Child's The Way To Cook. The one main change is that I use bread flour with a higher gluten content, to give the crumb more body than can be achieved with regular all-purpose flour. (In Switzerland, I use Zopfmehl.) This makes enough dough for one large loaf - or, 1 chocolate ring OR 1 sausage bread. If you want to make both at the same time, double the recipe. You may need to make a large amount of dough in two batches.

Brioche Bread

For the dough:

180g / 6 oz (approximately 1 1/2 sticks if you're in the U.S.) unsalted butter
1 package (7g) dry yeast
1/4 cup lukewarm water
1 pinch sugar
3 1/2 cups bread flour, give or take about 1/4 cup
1 1/2 tsp. salt
1/3 cup sugar (more if a sweeter dough is desired)
4 large eggs
1/3 cups whole milk or light cream

For the chocolate-nut ring:

200g / 7 oz. dark chocolate chips
60g / 2 oz roughly chopped hazelnuts (you can use any other kind of nuts you like)

For the braided sausage bread:

1 or 2 sausages of your choice - a Lyon style garlicky sausage or the type that's called a 'summer sausage' works well here. A hard dried sausage such as salami doesn't.
2 Tbs of Dijon-style mustard

For the egg wash / glaze:

1 egg
1 Tbs. milk

Preparation: Cut the butter into small dice, spread out onto a plate, and put in the freezer until it's very hard but not quite frozen.

Proof the yeast: Mix together the yeast, lukewarm water and pinch of sugar. Leave until the yeast gets foamy.

In a large bowl or in the bowl of your food processor, mix together the flour, 1/3 cup sugar and salt. Add the butter cubes, and if using a food processor pulse until the flour mixture becomes grainy. If mixing by hand, mix together with your hands by grabbing and rubbing until it becomes rather grainy. (You can also use a pastry blender for this, but I find that the hands work best.)

In a separate bowl, mix together the proofed yeast, beaten eggs, and milk or cream. Add in batches to the flour mixture while the food processor is running (or if by hand, mix vigorously with a wooden spoon.) When you're done you will have a rather shaggy looking ball of dough. Put the bowl in the refrigerator, and let it rest for about 10 minutes.

Take out the bowl, and turn out onto a floured surface. Knead it rapidly, pushing and turning, adding sprinkles of flour if needed, until you have a fairly smooth ball. Put this into a clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap or a plate, and leave to rise for about an hour.

Punch down the dough ball, and put the ball into a plastic bag that's big enough to allow the ball to expand to at least 3 times its original size. Suck out as much air out of the bag as you can, seal tightly and then put the whole into another plastic bag, and place in the refrigerator. Leave it there for at least 4-5 hours, preferably overnight or more. Making the dough up to this point the day ahead of when you want to bake it makes the most sense. You can leave it a maximum of 3 days. During this time, you will find that the dough will rise and almost burst the bag open, so you will need to periodically take a look at it and punch it down. This is why double-bagging is a good idea, since you may accidentally puncture the bag while punching it too hard.

About 90 minutes before you want to bake the bread, take the dough out and shape and fill it as you wish. Here I have shown how to make the chocolate and hazelnut-filled ring. The dough is rolled out into a long flat sausage, filled with the chocolate and nuts, shaped into a ring, then cut all around with a pair of kitchen scissors, to form a sort of flower shape. (You could fill this with dried fruit, or a cinnamon-sugar mixture, or whatever strikes your fancy). For the sausage bread, roll out the dough into a rough rectangle (reserving about 1/3rd of the dough), spread with the mustard, place the sausage and roll up the dough, pinching the seam tightly to seal. Cut the remaining dough into three pieces, stretch out and braid to put on top. After you've shaped the dough to your liking, place it on a parchment or silicon pad lined baking sheet and cover with another piece of parchment paper (not plastic wrap, which tends to stick to the dough and tear it when you try to take it off). Leave in a warm place until about doubled in bulk. 20 minutes before you intend to start baking, switch on the oven to 180°C / 350°F.

Brush the top of the dough with an egg wash (a mixture of beaten egg and a little milk) and bake for about 45 to 50 minutes - a longer time if you are baking 2 at once, shorter if you have a convection oven. Start checking at around 40 minutes; it should look dark golden brown and a bit crispy.

Take out and let cool, and enjoy.