Constructing a Meal

(This article was written earlier but Blogger has a rather annoying "auto-save" feature and the article got deleted. The CC had to rewrite it from scratch.)

One of the things that perennially bugs the CC is that neither home chefs nor professional chefs give any insight whatsoever into how a meal is actually constructed.

This has something fundamentally to do with the "recipe" format of cookbooks. One really needs an entirely alternate model that works at the meal level.

Cookbooks also rely on the entirely unreliable fact that people just magically absorb knowledge by "osmosis" and "culture". Both of these seem to be demonstrably false assertions. Since one is not always granted the luxury of an Italian nonna or an Japanese obaachan and since kids are not born knowing complex culinary logic when yanked from the womb, one is left with the inescapable conclusion that all knowledge is learned.

That means one should be able to both teach it and learn it.

The CC is going to use himself as an example.

The only thing planned before the Saturday was that the meal would be Japanese and it would feature some form of clams - either asari gohan (= あさりご飯 = clam rice) or asari no miso dashijiru (= あさり味噌汁, clam miso soup.)

The CC arrived at the farmers' market on a frigid Saturday morning only to find that most of the vendors were missing. It was already turning into a disaster.

Thankfully there was one vegetable vendor and the fishmonger was around.

Cauliflowers were obtained (purple, romanesco) as were some carrots. The CC noted that he had exactly two Italian flat beans and two cherry tomatoes at home. This was going to be a tricky operation.

The CC noted that there were no scallions at home and none at the market neither. However, he did have some homemade furikake already prepared. That put paid to the idea of the asari gohan (because of the black furikake) and hence it was going to the be the clams with miso soup.

(Note how we rarely make decisions. They are made for us already.)

Luckily, the CC still had one of the last of the late summer cucumbers so a quick sunomono (vinegar pickle) was added to the mix. The CC still had some pickled ginger in his cabinet. The vegetables were steamed and combined with a modified tare sauce that the CC just loves. The dish can be made ahead of time and is actually better at room temperature rather than warm.

The CC needed a fifth dish (rice doesn't count) and he had carrots so he made the classic quick stir-fried dish with carrots and hijiki.

The meal follows the entirely Japanese principles of washoku (= 和食) — there are five vegetables of different colors, five methods, five tastes, etc.

The rules above might have a Japanese origin but they are not laws of nature. They are just an excellent set of rules-of-thumb to ensure nutritional completeness and stave away boredom. The CC finds himself using the rules even if he's making a classically French dinner or an Indian one.

Dinner is served.

Five autumn vegetables with modified "tare" sauce
♦
Clam miso soup
♦
Cucumber sunomono
♦
Sweet-sour hijiki
♦
Pickled white ginger
♦
White rice with furikake

Sopa de Almejas (Clam Soup)

There is this wonderful Peruvian restaurant in Connecticut that the CC has been visiting for more than a decade. It makes a killer sopa de almejas.

Since the restaurant is a bit of a hike for the CC, he always ends up ordering the soup — rather than the other possibly amazing dishes — and he's never disappointed. It's served with some bread (at best, average) and some amazing homemade aji criollo.

However, it's the soup that really sings and the CC has been trying to reproduce it ever since.

At long last — it only took a decade — he's untangled the various strands and made it for himself, and it's exactly as killer.

There were several hidden problems that needed to be solved. One was that the soup came with this emulsified broth with a very deep taste. Inside it were placed four or five rather large clams. Finely chopped cilantro was sprinkled on the top. The broth had no solids but it had an intense flavor. There was a reasonable amount of oil in the broth like all restaurants. However, this turned out to be a red herring. There were more important things at play.

Some things were really obvious. There was a lot of tomato purée in the broth. There were the deep notes of black pepper. It was clear it was some kind of fish broth. It also had a very deep cilantro flavor that could not be coming from the tiny amount of stuff sprinkled on top.

The other clue was the price point on the menu. It was one of the cheapest items, and the serving was large enough for a very good lunch. Now, clams are rather cheap on the Eastern seaboard but they're not that cheap so that means the ingredients inside the broth had to be cheaper. (The CC considered the possibility that they were using commercial clam juice but the taste of the broth had a subtle fresh flavor so it didn't seem very likely.)

Other clues. The clams were served on the half-shell and were very juicy. They could not have been cooked with the broth, and they were too plump to have been sitting in there for too long.

Two other important clues.

The dish always took a little longer to serve than other dishes (when the CC went with friends) and the surprising one —  the broth was served piping hot. It was served almost at boiling point (close to 90-95°C.) When the broth cooled down, the soup didn't taste as good. Clearly, the temperature mattered greatly.

Peruvian cuisine is the ultimate mashup — besides the indigenous Incan origin, it's had Spanish, Italian, Chinese, West African and particularly Japanese influences.

It was clear that the broth had tons of umami but once again the price-point was critical. They may have been using MSG but it was being done with a light hand.

The critical insight is that this was a cheap restaurant surviving on very low margins. Nothing could be wasted. There were shrimp on the menu and they were clearly buying them whole. The broth was being made with the shrimp heads and the shells. They are the source of the resonant thumping flavor. Also, the broth clearly had onions and garlic and tons of black pepper and cilantro. However, after the broth being made, it was being filtered and solids pressed and tossed out. Then the clams were being shucked, and cooked in the broth, and whole thing brought to the table piping hot. They were also generous with salt.

Why did the temperature matter?

The CC is not completely sure but it seems plausible that the bitter notes of the cilantro and the pepper were dominating at lower temperatures. When hot, you just got the heady hit of the salt and umami from the broth and the tomatoes.

Sopa de Almejas

Note 1: The clams that the CC gets are the standard East Coast clams. The giant ones are easier to find up in Connecticut, Massachusetts & Maine. This doesn't matter as much. They were definitely using local stuff not Manila clams, etc.

Note 2: The salt in this recipe is really crucial. You need to add a teeny bit more than you think completely rational. The CC added salt to the boiling broth until it tasted "correct". It was a lot more than he expected. It will not be the same without.

Note 3: Unless you have shrimp heads and shells in your freezer, the clear substitute would be dried shrimp. You will also need some kombu unless you plan to add MSG. Not going to work otherwise.

Note 4: As ridiculous as this sounds, it's better with crusty bread that has been wrapped for about 6-8 hours in foil so that it goes just slightly limp from the exhalation of the moisture from the starch. The CC is perfectly aware that this is anal retentiveness^† of the highest order.

Note 5: The broth really needs to be at a boil. The CC is not kidding.

Ingredients

(serves 2)

1 dozen clams

2 tbsp oil
1 small onion (diced fine)
6-8 cloves of garlic (chopped)
4-6 tbsp tomato purée
1 piece kombu
1/4 cup dried shrimp
1/4 cup dried anchovies (if you have them)
1/3 cup diced cilantro (stems and all)
3 tbsp coarsely ground black pepper
4 cups water
salt

finely chopped cilantro leaves (to serve)

Recipe

First make the dashi.

Bring the water to the boil with the kombu. Right before the water boils, remove it and discard. If you don't do this, the broth will turn bitter. Toss in the shrimp and anchovies and let it boil for about 7-8 minutes. Skim the nasty froth that comes on top. Strain and keep the liquid. Discard the solids.

Heat up the oil. Fry the onions and the garlic until golden. Add the tomato purée and fry for a bit. Add the dashi, cilantro, salt and black pepper and bring to a rolling boil. Cook for about 6-7 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it steep for 10 minutes or so. Strain the broth pressing down on the solids to extract as much of the broth as necessary. Discard the solids.

(If you have two pots, the dashi can directly be strained into the second step. It will save you tons of time.)

Steam the clams with either the broth or some water. As they open, remove them and shuck off the half-shell. You can also just shuck them and store if you don't want to serve them with the half-shells.

Filter the clam broth with some paper towels. Clams are generally very gritty. Add this clam broth to the other broth.

Bring the broth to a rolling boil. Check for salt. You may need more.

Pour the broth over the clams. Add the cilantro on top. Serve at once with the crusty bread.

---

^† This can't be entirely surprising for a recipe that was a decade in the making.

Stracci con Ragú di Pesce

This recipe is serious work so it's not for everyone.

This recipe requires access to the freshest seafood and that means a local fisherman not a supermarket!

This recipe isn't here to feed your pathetic little palate. It's here to ensure the perfection of your soul.

It only works in summer when you have access to fresh seafood, fresh tomatoes and basil but what a recipe!

If you don't understand why tomatoes, you should read this.

The CC is also assuming that you have made the tomato sauce ahead of time. It's always there in the CC's kitchen in summer but if not you will need to make that as well.

So get cranking!


Stracci con ragú di pesce

(serves 2)

Note: This is the rare recipe that pairs fresh pasta with seafood and tomatoes. It's the exception that proves the rule. The idea is that both the tomatoes act as an accent. They are definitely not the main show here. The fresh seafood is.

Ingredients

Fresh Pasta

1 cup 00 flour (substitute by sieved all-purpose)
1 egg
salt

Ragú di pesce

6 scallops
2 squid
12 clams

8 cloves garlic
1 dried red chili
16 cherry tomatoes (half yellow, half red — cut in half)

1/3 cup white wine
1/2 cup tomato sauce

2 sprigs basil

pinch of saffron

olive oil
sea salt
black pepper

few basil leaves (cut into thin ribbons with scissors)
basil (ripped by hand into rough shreds)

Recipe

First, make the fresh pasta. (If you don't know how, you're probably going to need something a little more precise than the instructions below. Ironically, it's one of those things that's trivial to demonstrate and hard to write about.)

Dump the flour in a bowl. Make a well. Crack an egg into it. Add some salt. With a fork whip the egg, incorporating the flour as it goes by. Do NOT add water. Use your hands when it looks mixed in. Knead the dough to a silky mass adding only the tiniest amount of flour to make your hands not stick.

Set aside for at least 20 minutes.

Using a pasta maker, crank the dough repeatedly through all settings down to 5.

(Pasta machines have a scale from 1-8. One is coarsest and eight is finest. The reason to not crank it down to 5 straight away is that each pass through "kneads" the dough correctly to make it smooth and uniform. So you need to go through 1-2-3-4-5. Experienced chefs even repeat the 1 and 2 folding the dough into "threes" if they want a particularly refined pasta.)

Do not make it too thin. Cut into long thick ribbons and lay out on a tray to dry for at least an hour or even more in summer if it is humid. Two to three hours is preferable. The dough must dry out substantially otherwise it will fall apart.

(Yes, the CC knows that this is not stracci which refers to "rags" — irregularly cut pasta. You can cut the thick ribbons into irregular pieces. To make a true stracci, you'd have to hand-roll the pasta. If your spirit is willing and your flesh not weak, go for it!)

Then make the fresh seafood ragú.

Put the clams in a pot with half a cup of water. Heat them at high heat till they open. Fish out each one as it opens. Shuck them making sure to retain the liquid. Pass the liquid from the clams as well as the liquid from the pot through a paper towel (to eliminate the sand) and retain the liquid.

(The reason to shuck the clams is so that the shell doesn't tear the delicate pasta. With dried pasta, the clams are tossed with the shell to good effect but here we're working with fresh pasta and the clam shells would tear the pasta into shreds which we don't want.)

Heat up some olive oil in a pan. Add the garlic and red chili and let it fry for about 6 minutes at low heat. Make sure the garlic doesn't burn. Add the white wine and the clam juice from above and let it reduce a bit.

Toss in the cherry tomatoes and let cook for 5 minutes. Add the tomato sauce and basil strips and let cook till it is reduced somewhat.

Now make the pasta. When the water is boiling, add the pasta and let it cook. 3 minutes no more.

While the pasta is cooking, add the raw seafood, cooked clams and the saffron to the hot ragú. Do not overcook. You can even turn off the heat if the sauce is hot enough.

Drain the pasta and toss everything together. Add the torn basil and black pepper. Serve at once.

Sinigang na halaan

This is a Filipino meta-recipe.

You can have Sinigang na X where X can be a large variety of different kinds of meats and seafood. The three classic versions for the X would be pork, chicken and bangus respectively.

A word about bangus (milkfish). It's a fish that was traditionally found in the sea but can grow in brackish water. It's one of the older examples of aquaculture — at least 800 years old in the Philippines. The fish are bony — very bony and it's a skill to eat them.

Sinigang is a sour clear broth with one or more sources of meat and/or seafood, a ton of vegetables, and one souring agent. There is a purity of flavor coming from one very clear-cut souring source which neatly dovetails into the umami of the broth from the meat/seafood.

It is traditionally eaten with rice. The rice is frequently topped with fried garlic and/or fresh scallions but these are all details.

There are traditional recipes but there are clearly two dimensions to the dish — what meat/seafood you choose and what souring agent you choose.

Filipinos love sour food. This is a necessity forced by a tropical climate and a few millennia of no refrigeration turned into a cultural trait. It's one of the few ways to preserve food in a tropical climate so that there is no wastage. There is a difference though. The souring agents are cooked through. It gives them a "rounded mellow" flavor rather than the aggressive hit of acidity that you would get without cooking. There has to be enough sourness to wake up the taste buds but not so much as to make it pucker and inedible.

The list of souring agents is endless — vinegar made from all sorts of sources (coconut, palm, sugarcane, pineapples, etc.), tamarind, calamansi, kamias, santol, green mangoes, green guava, star fruit, green pineapples, even leaves of various plants, etc. This list barely even scratches the surface of this subject. The Philippines probably has the longest list of souring agents of any culture that the CC knows about.

Needless to say the souring agents are not substitutable for each other. It does matter whether you are making a sinigang with a hearty ingredient like pork or delicate ones like seafood. Santol which has an astringent tannic component would be most inappropriate for a seafood sinigang while almost all delicate fruit-based versions would work wonderfully.

There are also some classic touches about the choices of vegetables in a sinigang — a starchy root (taro, banana hearts or "New World" potatoes), some "green protein" typically long beans, and some greens in many many different forms — everything from sili (chili leaves) to bok choy, kang kong, and malunggay. Needless to say once tomatoes were discovered and transferred to the "Old World", they became irresistible additions for reasons we have covered on the blog before.

The ingredients are rotated with the combinatorial game that we have talked about extensively on the blog — you will see corn, carrots, radishes, eggplants and all kinds of other vegetables in there. There's a pairing bias though. You see lighter vegetables with seafood and more aggressive ones like eggplants with meat which makes logical sense based upon the palate profile.

Make no mistake though. The star is the sour broth.

One last word about the use of Filipino-style fish sauce called patis. It's basically the same concept as the Roman garum or the Thai nahm pla but it's arguably different. The CC would have no trouble distinguishing it in a blind tasting. You could substitute but it won't be the same.

Just like in Thai recipes, you don't add salt to the dish. The salt comes via the addition of the patis. Additionally, for this recipe with clams, they will give off plenty of salty liquid. Traditionally, the patis is always added towards the end where you can control the level of saltiness. (It also adds substantial umami to the dish.)

This makes a perfectly good soup even in the absence of rice which is heresy as far as the Filipino world is concerned but the CC can live with that.

After all this long explanatory buildup, this is not a difficult recipe. It's what Filipino moms make when they are too lazy to make something. It's really so simple as to defy its excellence.

Sinigang na halaan

Ingredients

1 large onion (sliced)
1" ginger (chopped thinly)
2 pieces ginger (chopped thinly)
1 chili (sliced lengthwise - optional)

2 small tomatoes (chopped into large pieces)
24 clams
2 cups tamarind water (read below)
2 cups water

1 lotus root (cut into 1/3" slices)
2 cups long beans (sliced into 2" pieces)
4 pieces baby bok choy (tough bottom parts cut off)
2 sprigs chili leaves (sili leaves)

patis (to taste)
vegetable oil

Recipe

Note: Various markets (Filipino, Indian, Thai) carry frozen "green fruits" and both fresh and dried tamarind. They are perfectly excellent in making the various sour broths because the textural component is not important in the least.

First make the tamarind water. Heat up 2 1/2 cups of water with tamarind pods and bring to a boil. Simmer for 10 minutes. Let it sit in the cooling water. When it has cooled down, separate the water from the pods using a strainer. Discard the solids. Retain the tamarind water.

Heat up the oil in a sturdy pot. Add the onions, ginger, garlic and chili (if using) and fry for a bit till soft. Roughly 6 minutes.

Add the tamarind water, the water and bring to a boil. Add the lotus roots and let cook for 3 minutes. Add the long beans and let cook for 4 minutes.

Add the clams. Let them cook till they open. Roughly 8 minutes.

Turn off the heat.

At the very end, add the tomatoes, the bok choy and the chili leaves and let them sit for a few minutes to wilt. Add the patis to taste.

Serve immediately with rice (or not.)

Classic Fish Pie

Amazing British Food? Surely that's an oxymoron.

Not so fast, my fine friends.

In the 18th century, there was very little difference between English, French and Italian food. If you look at the recipes, and they are almost all from the upper-crust of society who could afford to have servants and cooks and people who actually wrote the recipes down (as opposed to just make them), you will notice a strikingly similar set of palates and techniques. All the variation is just in what modern-day parlance is referred to as "locally-sourced ingredients" — what other choice was there back then?

It's the rise of nationalism in the 19th century and the extreme productivity of the early industrial society that led to a sharp distinction in cuisines. For lack of a better phrase, it was a form of "nationalistic branding". Even then, assuredly British cuisine could hold its own against the rest. After all, this was the richest society on earth. Surely nobody rational can believe that they ate badly, right?

It is also important to note that Britain's primary source of wealth was its Empire. A young stalwart called America was muscling onto its economic terrain using the power of technology — in this case agricultural and transportation technology. Midwestern grain could reach Europe cheaper than anything they could produce there. It was just economies of scale.There was a long slow decline in Britain's fortunes that has been documented extensively.

What laid utter waste to British Food was the Great War — World War I.

It destroyed the aristocracy. It destroyed the wealth, the food sourcing, the elaborate techniques, and the accumulated knowledge. You have to remember that a British aristocrat using the power of the nascent telephone (and canning technology!) back then could source food ingredients from all over the world. It was the proto-typical Internet.

It was all completely annihilated.

After that, between the loss of reserve currency status, loss of Empire and World War II, the culture turned into an economic wasteland with predictable effects on its food.

It took another 60 years to recover.

So the CC is going to argue quite forcefully that people who deride British food are looking at it through myopic eyes. Was it awful for about a century? Emphatically yes, but that's for non-reproducible reasons in what is but a twinkling of an eye in world history which happens to be the same as food history.

So you are going to have to dial back the clock and not just look at a modern-day recipe but what exactly were its antecedents. Once you do, you see the same "fresh herbs" and "fresh ingredients" and "attention to detail" that you see in other places.

What would classical English spicing be? Any herbs that grow in a colder climate. Just remember than the British Isles are nowhere near as cold as Scandinavia because of the warm North Atlantic Drift.

English thyme, parsley, bay leaves, rosemary, rue and mint (which is basically a weed and will grow anywhere). The entire cornucopia of spices imported from India since Roman times (pepper, cinnamon, cloves, etc.) and also from the West Indies (nutmeg, etc.)

The sauces are a little complex and heavy for modern palates but then the same goes for Classical French Cuisine which has fallen out of favor as well. All that can be easily addressed. You can lighten the sauce to make it more amenable to a contemporary audience. It's not even hard.

What's presented below is a classic fish pie.

Note the extensive use of fresh herbs. Note the careful three-part technique upfront before the final baking where each step neatly turns into the next one so that not even the slightest iota of flavor or ingredients are wasted.

How does it work?

In the old days, you would have sourced whole fish, whole prawns, etc. Our modern fillets and cleaned fish waste most of the parts that are used to extract even more flavor into the whole. This is our loss both economic and culinary.

First you use all the "remnants" of the fish (heads, shells, etc.) to make a fish broth (step 1). Then the fillets and the shellfish are poached with milk and fresh herbs (step 2). The fish is separated and the milk is strained and reserved and made into a classic béchamel (step 3) with vegetables and the fish broth and more fresh herbs are added into which the flaked fish will be folded in. Optionally, cheese might be added. (If it is, it's with a light hand. It would be a traditional cheddar which has nothing like the aggressive flavor of a modern-day cheddar. It's very mellow and has insane umami particularly when combined with the fish broth.)

The vegetables would've been "seasonal". People back then were just as bored eating the same-ol'-same-ol' as they might be today. Leeks, carrots, cauliflower, peas, asparagus, spinach, sorrel.

Separately, you make mashed potatoes. The dish is layered with the fish below the potatoes and baked till you get a British gratin. The killer step which so few people bother to do these days is that the mashed potatoes on top must be carefully raked like a Japanese Zen-Garden with the tines of a fork so that when they bake, you get not only a gorgeous presentation but crispy-brown bits thanks to the Maillard Reaction.

In the old days, the béchamel and the mashed potatoes would have had cream in them. It would also have have been presented in a pastry crust for formal presentations. All of this can be "lightened up".

This is technique at the highest level!


Ingredients

1 large piece of cod
12 clams
6 whole prawns (reserve the shells)

1 cup water
1 cup milk

2 large leeks
butter
8 tbsp. flour
1/2 cup cheddar (grated)

1 small carrot (diced)
1/2 cup peas

1 bay leaf
12-20 black peppercorns
parsley

nutmeg
parsley

3 large potatoes
milk
chives

sea salt

Recipe

First make the fish broth. Heat up some water with some prawn shells and let it simmer for about 10 minutes. (If not using prawns, use dried fish or dried shrimp to make a broth. Yes, this is important.)

Filter and retain the broth.

Take the clams and add the above broth to it. Steam them in an open pot until they open. Fish them out. Filter the clam broth through a cheesecloth and reserve. Chop the clams and reserve.

Heat the milk, the bay leaf, some parsley and the peppercorns. Bring to a boil. Put in the cod and let it poach for about three minutes. Fish it out. Put it in a bowl and flake it discarding the skin and bones.

Filter the milk combination discarding the bay leaf, parsley and peppercorns and reserve.

Now make a classic béchamel. Heat up some butter and when it is bubbling, add the leeks and let them cook for a bit. Add the flour and let it cook until light golden. Add the milk combination from above and let it reduce till it is thick. When the milk is denatured, add the broth. Be careful not to add the broth until the milk has denatured otherwise it will curdle. Add the grated cheddar, the remaining chopped parsley, black pepper, grated nutmeg and fold in the flaked cod, prawns, and chopped clams.

Separately, cook the potato in salted water till it is tender. In a bowl, mash it with some milk. Add the chives to this mix. The mixture should be on the thicker side not like traditional mashed potatoes which have more liquid.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

In an oven-proof dish, layer the seafood in the béchamel sauce at the bottom. Top with the mashed potatoes. With the tines of a fork, rake the surface of the mashed potatoes with deep ridges in an attractive pattern.

Let it bake for 30 minutes till the top of the potatoes are lightly crispy.

Serve with a salad.

Clam, White Bean & Saffron Soup with Parmesan Toasts

This is a very simple recipe. The CC has seen it made with mussels as well.

The parmesan toasts are simply superb. They would work with most soups.

The advantage of making them is you do get a subtle umami flavoring from the parmesan as you dunk them in clam soup but at no point does it overwhelm the purity of the clam flavor which would be the case if you just added parmesan directly to the soup.

Parmesan Toasts

(yields 8 triangles)

Ingredients

1 1/2 cup grated parmigiano-reggiano
4 slices bread

Recipe

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

On a tray lay out the slices of bread and evenly divide the parmesan onto each.

Bake for about 10 minutes. Be careful that they do not burn. Cut into triangles and set aside.

Clam, White Bean & Saffron Soup

(serves 2)

Ingredients

2 dozen clams

1 small onion (sliced into thin half-rounds)

1/4 cup white beans

olive oil

large pinch of saffron

black pepper

Recipe

First make the beans. Cook them in very lightly salted water till done. Roughly 20 minutes. Reserve the broth. (Do not oversalt the water because the clams are briny and the soup will become overly salty)

Cook the clams with some water. When they open fish them out. Pass the clam broth through a cheesecloth to eliminate the sand. Reserve the clams and broth separately.

In a pot, heat up some olive oil. Add the onions and cook till they are limp but not colored. Fry the cooked beans for a bit. Add the two broths and black pepper. Bring to a boil and let it cook for about 8-10 minutes. Add the saffron at the last minute. Turn off the heat.

Divide the clams into two bowls. Top with the soup. Serve with the parmesan toasts.

Japanese Meal

For the celebration of a special friend's birthday dinner.

Bottom left:

Sautéeed scallops in miso-glaze reduction.

Left placement:

Miso Soup.
Asari Gohan (あさりご飯).

Down the center plate:

Fresh wasabi (わさび).
Pickled cucumber.
Pickled jellyfish with hijiki, ginger & cucumber.
Pickled burdock (ごぼ).
Fresh seaweed salad.

Bottom right:

Scallop Sashimi.

Right placement:

Symmetric placement of left.

Cooking Myths (Part 3)

This one's a doozy because it goes against all logic.

Apparently, when you steam mussels, clams or oysters, the ones that don't open should be discarded.

This defies science and logic.

Dead clams are obvious to spot. They are open and they stink. In fact, a closed clam is a healthy one because it's still alive.

When you steam them, you are in fact, killing them.

Clams, oysters, mussels – they don't possess a nervous system like mammals that feels pain so for all those vegetarians given to furious and fervent anthropomorphism, this is not unlike steaming spinach. You are killing the spinach too when you steam it and it too feels no pain!

The ones that don't open are the healthiest of them all since they are resistant. A few additional minutes of steaming always does the job.

So people prefer tossing out the best clams for the dubious ones? Sounds pretty fuckin' irrational to the CC!

Clams in Dry Masala

Every week a local fisherman comes to the farmers' market. They have whatever they catch the previous day.

This being the East Coast, they always have clams which the CC never fully appreciated before living out here. Now, they are the most purchased weekly item (after tomatoes, of course!)

There are two classics that the CC makes often — spaghetti with clams and asari gohan (あさりご飯).

This recipe is from the Konkan region in India. It's quite straightforward, and it's in the sukke style (as in it's a dry dish.)

Ingredients

2 dozen clams
1 small onion (diced fine)
1 sprig curry leaves
1/2 cup fresh/frozen coconut
2-3 pieces of tamarind

1/2 tsp turmeric
1 tsp chilli powder (or more)

oil
salt

Recipe

First soak the tamarind pieces in 1/2 cup of boiling water. Set aside for 15 minutes or so. When done, mash the tamarind with your hands (the water should've cooled down.) Pass through a fine sieve and retain the liquid. Toss in the turmeric, chilli powder and salt into the liquid and mix thoroughly. Make sure you don't get lumps of turmeric and/or chilli powder. You need to make sure they mix thoroughly.

In a small pot, heat the oil. When it shimmers, fry the onions until they are translucent. Add the curry leaves and fry for a bit. Add the coconut and fry for a minute. Add the clams and fry for a bit. Toss in the tamarind liquid (which has the spices mixed in.)

Cook uncovered until the clams open. Serve immediately with rice.

Chickpeas & Cod & Clams - Oh My!

Spicy Curried Clams with Chickpeas

This is clearly a French thought on how to Indianize a recipe.

The CC expounded long ago and on length on the role of curry powder in the global 19th century economy so there's no point in repeating that.

The recipe is awesome. And quick. And nutritious. And weekday compatible.

So just grab a baguette, pour a glass of steely dry white wine, agree to not quibble about the origins and just enjoy it, alright?


Ingredients

18 clams
1 small red onion (chopped fine)
1/2" ginger (julliened)
1 green chilly (crushed)
1 clove garlic (crushed)
2 tbsp curry powder
1 cup white wine

1 cup chickpeas (cooked)

sea salt
black pepper

1/2 cup cilantro leaves
1 lime (juiced)

Recipe

The recipe is fairly obvious.

Cook the chickpeas. The CC promises not to scoff if you use canned. However, it's best to cook them ahead of time.

Fry some olive oil at medium heat, and toss in the onions, ginger, garlic and green chilly paste. Fry languidly for 6-8 minutes Toss in the clams. When coated, toss in the white wine, black pepper, and the curry powder. Bring to a boil. Cover and simmer.

As the clams open, remove them and place them in the serving bowls.

Add the chickpeas, and reduce until it's a wet mixture but not too dry. Add some water if its too dry. Serve over the clams. Add lime juice, and sprinkle with cilantro. Serve with crusty bread.

Asari Gohan

This is a basic every day dish that is so amazing that you will be forever checking how you lived your life before it. It's nutritionally complete, visually appealing, complex enough to be served at a state dinner. (In short, the platonic ideal of a Japanese dish.)

It's neither complicated nor hard in the least but it requires a fairly elaborate explanation of how all the pieces actually work.


Ingredients

12-18 clams
1/3 cup sake
1 tbsp ginger (cut into fine matchsticks)

1 cup japonica rice

2 cups kombu dashi

1/4 cup carrots (cut into matchsticks)
1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms (cut into matchsticks)
1 tbsp ginger (cut into fine matchsticks)

2 tbsp tamari (soy sauce)
2 tbsp sake
2 tbsp mirin

1 scallion (white and green parts sliced thin at a steep diagonal)
nori (sliced really thin)

Recipe

The first thing that you must do is wash the rice in cold water. The rice must be "polished" with your hands until all the surface starch is eliminated, and the water runs clear. Typically, this takes anywhere from 4-6 washings.

Drain the rice and let it sit wet for at least 30 minutes. (Yes, this matters.)

Add 1/3 cup of the sake to the ginger. Bring to a boil. Steam the clams. Remove as they open, and shuck them.

When all the clams are done, filter the liquid (= clam broth) through a cheesecloth/paper towel and reserve.

Combine the dashi, clam broth, 2 tbsp of sake, the tamari and the mirin. Add the rice, carrots, shiitake mushrooms and cook till the rice is well done.

The logic of this step is that the rice is cooked in an intensely umami-laden broth that makes it completely irresistible. Add to that the fact that esterification takes place means that it's almost impossible to resist.

Top with the clams, the scallion and the nori, and serve.

The clams add the protein, the scallion and the nori, the textural interest.

What Nonna can learn from Obaasan!

The recipe for spaghetti with clams is justifiably a classic.

However, there's a subtle way in which it can be improved, and we have the Japanese to thank for that.

The classic Italian (or French) way is to dump all the clams in, toss in some wine, and let them steam. Fish them out as they open, and then reduce the broth to get it to its logical clamminess.

The classic Japanese way improves on this in many many ways. It's subtle and it works because it interleaves the two steps to make it all better.

The CC first learnt about this trick when he was making asari gohan — an elementally simple dish of clams served over rice. Very simple and eminently suitable for a day when only a simple home-cooked meal will do.

When he first read the instructions, he was a little mystified but decided to follow them anyway. The logic of the procedure jumped out with such immense force that he realized rapidly that it would enable him to take his Italian clam recipes to the next level.

The trick is very very simple.

Instead of steaming the clams all at once, we are going to steam them in batches. Typically 3-4 batches depending on the number of clams. The idea is that each batch not just steams in the previous clam's broth but that the broth reduces at the same time so that there is very little wastage of time. What seems at first like "taking longer" is actually a very clever way of combining the two steps. Each batch steams, opens up, and releases the juices. Meanwhile the next batch steams while the previous clam broth reduces itself.

The moral must be that even Italian grandmas, as talented as they are, have something to learn from the rest of the world.

Winter Wonders

It may be winter but the clams are fat (and cheap!)

Spaghetti with clams, anyone?

Spaghetti with Clams

This one here is a classic.

It's also easy enough to make on a weekday, and eminently parallelizable so take careful notice.

(The recipe below feeds two so up the quantities proportionately.)



Ingredients

spaghetti (depending on hunger)

18 clams
1 red onion
4 cloves garlic
1/4 cup italian parsley (finely chopped)
herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage -- finely chopped -- whatever you have really!)
2 cups white wine

sea salt
black pepper
olive oil

Recipe

Bring the pasta water to a boil.

Meanwhile, in a heavy pot, bring a tiny bit of olive oil to a simmer. Add the clams, fry quickly, and add 1 cup of the white wine, and 1 cup of water. Cover, and let steam for 4 minutes.

The second cup of wine is for the chef.

Meanwhile, chop the onions and garlic finely.

After 4 minutes, open the pot. Remove each clam with pincers as it opens so as not to overcook.

When all the clams are open, and removed, filter the clam water through a cloth or paper towels into a bowl. Clams frequently have sand so this step is not skippable.

This clam water is the source of magic in this recipe!

Shuck the clams (or not.)

Add the spaghetti to the water. Let it cook until al dente.

Fry the onions and garlic languidly in the olive oil (6-7 minutes.) Add the filtered clam water, and reduce over high heat.

Toss the spaghetti, clam sauce, clams, herbs and parsley, and serve with lots of black pepper.

Why doesn't the CC ever clam up?

Linguini with Clams

Pepe's (in New Haven)

The original "New Haven" pizza with a coal-fired oven!

The CC (and his friends) had a clam pizza, and the crust is absolutely divine. For once, reality lives up to the hype.

Better believe it!

Clam Pizza

Ever since spending his waking hours in Connecticut, the CC finds himself addicted to clam pizza?

"Where have you been all my life?"

Is the CC turning into an East-coaster? (Apologies to all of you on the wrong coast!)

Comments, please!