slowcook

Oden, a Japanese stew or hotpot

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

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

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

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

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

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

Oden no mi

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

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

To these, people often add:

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

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

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

Oden, the easy way

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Add the hanpen in the last 5 minutes or so.

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

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

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

Hayashi raisu (rice): Japanese beef stew

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hayashi raisu (Hayashi rice)

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

The sauce ingredients:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This makes 6 to 8 servings.

Hayashi omuraisu

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

Buta no kakuni: Japanese Braised Pork Belly

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

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

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

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

Buta no kakuni (Japanese braised pork belly)

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

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

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

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

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

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

A bit about my mom, Michiko

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

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

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.

Curry - stewing in the pot

maki — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 13:08:24 +0100

Japanese beef curry with brown rice and rakkyou

maki — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:16:43 +0100

Japanese beef curry, closeup

maki — Tue, 06 Feb 2007 12:15:02 +0100

Recipe: Beef and vegetable stew with parsley dumplings

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

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

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

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

Beef and Vegetable Stew with Parsley Dumplings

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

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

For the dumplings:

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

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

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

Dry off the beef cubes thoroughly with a paper towel.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

All-day Boston baked beans

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Boston baked beans

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

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

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

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

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

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

Leftovers get even better.

Notes

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

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

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