Chaos and Cuisine!!

Follow the adventures of Sean and Katrina as they save the world, battle evildoers, and explore world cuisine!

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Pomelo

Where: Vietnam

The pomelo has been largely forgotten about in, Americans oddly preferring the bitter grapefruit, which is in fact a hybrid of the pomelo and sweet orange. In fact, tangelos, mandelos and even possibly oranges are crossbreeds of this majestic fruit, popular across southeastern asia.

The pomelo usually has green skin, a thick inedible white rind, and flesh varying from pink to white. The taste is wonderful, lacking the sweetness that marks other citrus fruits, and only mildly bitter, unlike the grapefuit. Surely, the next time you see one of these pass through an upscale market, grab it, and try it out. You'll be happy you did.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Wild Rice Pancakes

Wild rice is many things. Firstly, it's not rice, but a distant relative. Secondly, it's easily one of the most underused ingredients in any culinary tradition. But this recipe is gorgeous. It's inspired!

Wild Rice Pancakes
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 3-4

Ingredients:
1 cup wild rice2 2/3 cup water
1 tsp salt
1 carrot, finely diced
1 stalk celery, finely diced
1 onion, finely diced
3 scallions greens, sliced
3/4 tsp dried thyme
3 tbsp butter
2 eggs
3/4 cup milk
1 cup flour
oil

Cooking:
Combine the water, rice, and salt and simmer, covered, for 45 to 50 minutes, or until all of the water is absorbed.

In a large saucepan, melt the butter and use it to sautee the carrots, celery, thyme, scallion greens, for about 10 minutes or until the carrots are soft.

In a soft bowl whisk together the egg and milk, and slowly mix into the rice mixture. Mix the carrots mixture in, and then add the flour, salt, and pepper.

Oil and heat a griddle and pour 1/4 cup batter into pancakes. Cook for 3 minutes per side, or until golden.

Friday, January 28, 2011

Algonquin Wild Nut Soup

This soup is relatively simple to make and requires little work, and just a little patience.

Algonquin Wild Nut Soup
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 1 1/2 hours
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
24 oz hazelnuts, crushed
6 scallions, with tops, sliced
3 tbsp parsley, chopped
6 cups stock
1 tsp salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

Cooking:
Place all ingredients in a large soup pot and simmer for 1 /2 hours.

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Chapter 12 : Native American

When the idea of trying to cook Native American food came up, at first it sounded lunatic. Is there enough Native American cuisine to make? Would it be any good?

The answers seem to be yes and yes, although we cooked it around Thanksgiving so I hadn't time to try out more than a few dishes. Of course, figuring out what could be an "authentic" Native American recipe is difficult. After all, moden Native American recipes are often shadows of European recipes, since European cooking methods assuredly have been adopted with time, along with many European ingredients.

But then again, in this age the chilli pepper, discovered in use by the Aztecs, has spread across the globe as far as Korea, would it not be fair to assume Indian culinary tradition should have adopted from its contact with Europe?

Still, some recipes were so far European in origin as not to seem worth trying, but that didn't leave me with too few. I aimed for a few that used very American ingredients in ways we rarely do.

Firstly, there's Sunflower Bannock. Now, What is
a "Bannock" you might ask. Well, it's an old
English and Scottish term for a round loaf of bread. A piece of a bannock would be a "scone".

Sunflower Bannock
Prep Time: Negligible
Cooing Time: 2 hours
Serves: 5-6

Ingredients:
3 1/4 cup sunflower seeds
3 1/4 cup water
2 1/2 tsp salt
6 tbsp corn flour
2/3 cup oil

Cooking:
In a large pot, put the water, sunflower seeds, and salt and cook for 1 1/2 hours.

Make a paste by crushing the seeds (or putting them through a food processor). Add the corn flour slowly, thickening the paste.

Cool a little, and make into small flat pancakes with your hands, and then fry in oil, until both sides are brown.

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Nashi

Sometimes known as asian pear, japanese pear, and apple pear, nashi is one of those "best of both worlds" proposals. After all, it's not the flavor of the pear itself that has set it beneath the apple, but the texture being slightly too soft and the shape altogether less pleasing.

Well, nashi has all the shape of an apple, and is well between the firmness of a bosc pear and an apple.

And the flavor is among the best pear you'll ever try.

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Curry Rice

"Curry", despite its origins in India, has manifestations in every country. Perhaps especially unique is Japanese curry, or curry rice as it is uaully known, as it's always served with rice.

The Japanese don't especially care for spice, so Japanese curry tends to be toned down quite a bit form its Indian counterpart, and unlike curry, which is thickened through yogurt, cream, or coconut milk, curry rice is thickened with roux, more like a stew or etouffee.

Japanese garam masala isn't exactly like Indian garma masala, although you can use the latter for a slightly spicier mix.

Curry Rice
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 2 1/2 hours
Serves: 6

Ingredients:
1 lb beef stewing chunks
6 large onions, sliced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 inch piece of ginger
1 can crushed tomatoes (2 cups)
1 beef stock cube
1 bay leaf
1 star anise
2 tbsp garam masala
3 large carrots, chopped
1 medium apple, peeled and grated
salt and pepper to taste
3 tbsp oil or ghee

Roux:
4 tbsp butter ghee or oil
4 tbsp white flour
2 tbsp curry powder

Ingredients:
Heat 3 tbsp oil or ghee in the bottom of a large pot. Brown beef chunks, and then set aside on a paper towel.

Add onions and a pinch of salt. Slowly sautee onions until caramelized. Be patient, as this proces may take a long time.

Once the onions are soft and browned, add ginger and garlic and cook for a couple more minutes. Add the canned tomato, 6 cups of water, beef cube, the bay leaf, star anise, and apple. Bring to a boil, then lower and simmer for an hour.

While this is happening, dry roast 1 tbsp garam masala about 30 minutes into simmering.

Produce a Roux:
Melt the 4 tbsp ghee or oil in a pan over very low heat, and mix in the flour. Cook very slowly, stirring constantly. There's an art to this, and it takes patience. If you burn it, throw it out and try again. In about five minutes the mixture will be peanut butter colored. This mix, known as a Roux (pronounced "roo") will thicken your curry rice.

Remove the roux from heat and add the curry powder to the roux.

When the meat is about as tender as you'd like add the potatoes, and continue slowly simmering until potatoes are soft.

Take the pot off the heat and stir in the roux. Return it to heat and simmer for a couple more minutes. Dry roast the rest of the garam masala and add it to the curry.

Serve over sushi rice.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Ranma

Okonomiyaki is a common Japanese street food, sometimes called "Japanese pizza", although the description is misleading at best. While similarly customizeable, it's more of a savory pancakes, full of onions and cabbage, topped with okonomiyaki sauce.

Okonomiyaki
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cooking Time: 30 minutes
Serves: 1-2

Ingredients:
1 cup flour
3/4 cups dashi
1 egg
1/6 head of cabbage
1/4 onion

Fillings (all optional):
Chicken
Beef
Squid
Octopus
Mushrooms

Cooking:

Mix flour, dashi, and egg into a batter, and then add cabbage and onions. Then add whatever "fillings" you like, and fry it on a large skillet, carefully turning it once.

Absolutely delicious, cheap, and you could feed an army with it.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Ghost in the Shell

Oden is truely unique. It's a thin soup, based around primarily different forms of what is known as "fishcake" available at virtually every Asian grocery store.

Now, condensing oden into a recipe is extremely difficult, although this blog makes a valiant effort.

Oden requires only a few basic ingredients, like kombu, and in some form fishcake, but here's a list of things you might want to throw in yours:
kombu - a type of seaweed used in the production of dashi. One leaf will do for a pot of oden
various fishcake - sometimes you can find variety packages that contain multiple kinds
carrots
potatoes
konyaku - a bizarre block of non-calorific stuff, that you blanch for several minutes before adding
one hard boiled egg per person. It has an interesting flavor, or lack thereof perhaps, and a strangely firm texture
daikon - peeled and cut into rounds, daikon is a long, white Japanese radish
You soak the kombu in cold water for 20 minutes, then bring to a boil. Then you add the konyaku and vegetables, and simmer until almost tender. Then you add the fishcake, and simmer until done.





Saturday, January 22, 2011

Miso

Miso soup: if you've ever gone out for sushi you've probably had it. You might have thought it was good. Well think again: restaurant miso is a fraction as good as you can make it at home, with barely more work than it takes to heat up some Cambell's soup.

Miso
Prep Time: Negligible (20 minutes to make dashi, if you have to)
Cooking Time: 5 minutes
Serves: 6

Ingredients:
1/3 - 1/2 cup miso paste
4 cups dashi
a pinch of wakame strips
cubed tofu

Preparation:

Soak wakame in warm water.

Cooking:

Heat dashi. Once hot, remove from heat and add wakame, tofu, and miso.

Now hold on, there's a little more to this than it sounds. Firstly, you're probably wondering what wakame is. Well, it's another kind of seaweed found at your local japanese/asian market.

As for miso, that's a little more complex. Miso comes in hundreds of varieties. The most basic is with or without dashi. Since dashi takes virtually no work, I recommend going without. Beyond that, I'll direct you over to this article, which covers miso paste better than I could.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Mushroom Soup

This wonderful dash based soup a great way to use up spare mushrooms. It takes little effort
and tastes wonderful.

Mushroom Soup
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:
1 bunch enoki mushrooms4 shiitake mushrooms
2 oz cellophane noodles
1 scallion
3 1/2 cup dashi
2 tbsp soy sauce
1 tbsp sake
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tbsp oil

Preparation:
Slice the shiitake and cut enoki into 2 inch pieces, removing the bottom portion. Slice scallion diagonally. Soak cellophane noodles in warm water for five minutes.

Cooking:
Heat oil in a pan, and sautee the mushrooms until soft. Pour dashi over the mushrooms and bring to boil. Skim off impurities. Add cellophane noodles and scallion and heat until hot.

Remove from heat and season with soy sauce, sake, and salt.


Thursday, January 20, 2011

Dashi

Dashi is essential to Japanese cooking. It can be made from instant dashi, or substituted with beef stock or base, but those products are entirely inferior in flavor and feel. Moreover, unlike traditional western stocks, which can be made with little effort inch takes hours of slaving over to produce, dashi minutes.

Ingredients:

1 piece kombu (seaweed)
a handful of bontio flakes
4 cups water

Place the kombu in a pot, cover it with water and let it soak, cold, for twenty minutes. Turn heat to high, bring to a boil. Remove from heat and add bonito flakes. Soak for five minutes. And you're done!

Alternately, you can place a kombu oiece, handful of bonito flakes, and 4 cups of cold water into a pitcher and place it in the refridgerator for 6 hours, and you'll get... the same thing. Dashi's that simple.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Kurigohan

Chestnuts have become a seasonal rarity in America, thanks to the chestnut blight that nearly exterminated them a century before.

This autumn Japanese specialty takes few ingredients, and little more than a rice cooker.

Kurigohan (Chestnut Rice)
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cooking Time: 40 minutes
Serves: 4 servings

Ingredients:
2 1/4 short grain rice
20 small chestnuts
1 tsp soy sauce
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sake
2 2/3 cup water

Preparation:
Soak the chestnuts in hot water for about 30 minutes, then carefully peel the outer shell and skin.

Cooking:
Put the rice, chestnuts, soy sauce, mirin, sake, and water into a rice cooker, and start it.

You can also do this on stove top if you don't have a rice cooker. Just cover and cook until liquid is gone.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Seven Samurai

Kabocha is a type of squash known as "Japanese pumpkin". It looks like a buttercup squash, in fact. Almost identical. If they are one and the same, somebody should let me know- I'll be buying buttercup squash by the bushel.

Just calling these dark green squash pumpkin doesn't do it justice. It has a thin shell, easily removed with a vegetable peeler, allowing it to be cooked in ways one simply can';t a normal Pumpkin.

Simmered Sweet Kabocha
Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes
Serves: 4

Ingredients:
1 lb kanocha
1 c water
4 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp soy sauce

Preparation:
Peel the kabocha using a vegetable peeler (unlike Western pumpkins, it will peel easily), and then cut it into 1 1/2 inch pieces.

Cooking:
Put water, sugar, soy sauce, and kabocha into a pot. Turn on high heat and bring to a boil, and then lower to a simmer and cover. Simmer for 15 minutes, or until the water is almost gone.