Summer Sizzle

The city has gone from cold and rainy to muggy and stifling in the blink of an eye! Even eating is hard to do let alone contemplate slaving over a hot stove for hours.

In that spirit, here's a terrific recipe for a marinade for fish.

Two tablespoons white miso, 4 tbsp mirin, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 4 tbsp sake.

Marinade the fish.

Put in a broil-proof pan, add more of the marinade on top and broil for four minutes.

Serve with a cool salad.

Cooking Myths (Part 3)

There seems to be pervasive myth that if you remove the seeds from a green chilli then it loses its heat.

Except that all the heat of a chilli is in the skin not the seeds.

Remove them for aesthetic reasons but don't be under any delusion that you are reducting the heat quotient!

Dancing Fish Flakes

One of the spookiest presentation tricks used in Japanese pub food (izakaya) is topping hot food like takoyaki (fried octopus balls) with very thin shavings of katsuobushi.

The heat rising from the freshly fried food makes the thin shavings vibrate to and fro like seaweed.

It's both spectacular and creepy at the same time!

Drunken Noodles with Shiitake & Cashews

Every time the CC reads one of those ridiculous vegan recipes written by a chick – and yes! it's always a chick – even when the flavor pairings are quite attractive, he realizes that they have absolutely no idea of what actually makes the recipe tick at either a deep scientific or cultural level.

This is one of those recipes.

So the CC being the CC went back and reworked the recipe back to what it should've been in the first place. The integrity of the recipe has been preserved (still the same flavor combinations), and it's still vegan!

At the heart of it, the recipe is a classic Japanese dashi-laden broth with udon noodles except that the broth has been infused with classic Indian flavors. Textural variation is added by the addition of cashews (definitely not Japanese since they are New World!) The mushrooms add the umami-oomph as explained here, and there are carrots for color and nutrition.

The recipe is terrific! (The CC's version not the zombie vegan chick's version which is positively upchuck-worthy!)

May technique and culture win over mindless zombie cultists! (Not terribly likely but one can only hope.)


Ingredients

4 cups dashi
1" ginger (chopped coarsely)
4-6 green chillies

1 pack udon noodles

1/2 cup shiitake mushrooms
1/4 cup carrots (cut into fine sticks)
1/2 cup cashews

2 tbsp shoyu (soy sauce)
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sugar
salt

1/4 cup cilantro (finely chopped)
1 scallion (cut at a steep diagonal)

Recipe

Roast the cashews in the oven at 375°F for about 15 minutes. Be careful since they have a tendency to burn.

Meanwhile make the dashi. You can make it vegan by making it shōjin ryōri style by just using konbu.

Then add the ginger, green chillies, soy sauce, mirin, salt and sugar to it and let it stew gently for about 15 minutes. Strain, and toss the ginger and green chillies.

Toss in the shiitake mushrooms and carrots and set aside.

Taste. It should have a strong bite but be balanced in its flavor. Adjust as necessary.

Cook the udon noodles. Drain and pour them into individual bowls.

Top with the broth, cashews, scallions and cilantro.

Ras-el-Hanout

The name translates to "top-of-the-house" meaning the best spice blend that the spice house has to sell.

Each Moroccan spice house tries to outdo the other in the exoticism of their ingredients. This is just good advertising and product differentiation at play.

Given below is the CC's version which is adapted from Paula Wolfert and Mourad Lahlou.

It's also correctly "scaled-down" as explained here because most books give industrial-sized versions which rather than goad the CC into pawing his way to the kitchen make him contemplate on the elegance of takeout.

Ingredients

1 nutmeg
2 blades of mace
1 cinnamon stick (or cassia)
6 cloves
12 peppercorns
1 dried red pepper
1 small piece dried galangal
6 green cardamoms
1 black cardamom

1 tsp turmeric
1/2 tsp lavender
1/2 tsp grains of paradise
1/4 tsp cumin
1 tsp dried ginger powder
1/2 tsp aniseed (or fennel)

10 dried rose buds
large pinch of saffron

Spring is Here

That means asparagus!

Also procured at the markets today — mizuna, parsley, cod, clams.

Still a little early for vegetables because of the cool weather we're having lately.

Maldive Fish Flakes

They are fish flakes that are made from skipjack tuna which is the same fish that the Japanese use to make katsuobushi.

The difference is that while the Japanese process involves smoked drying followed by a precise fermentation and sun-drying, the Sri Lankan process involves just sun-drying the lean parts of the fish.

They "dissolve" in the dish and lend it a deep umami flavor, and it's absolutely indispensible to Sri Lankan food.

Good Morning, Oysters!

Eggs Benedict w/ Fried Oysters

Oyster Po-Boy

Oysters!

In the immortal words of Mae West, "Too much of a good thing can be wonderful!"

New Orleans

Oysters and gumbo and beignets, oh my!

Trip to New Orleans

The CC departs for New Orleans tomorrow.

He will leave with a Mark Twain quote:

New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin.

Oysters, ahoy!