Sansai Soba (山菜そば)

It's relatively easy to make this when you can source the mountain vegetables in winter.

They are found the fresh section but they come packed in relatively alkaline water. They must be thoroughly washed multiple times before they can be used. The above set up may sound horrible but the CC was shockingly surprised at the excellence of the vegetables. They maintained their textural crispness which was quite amazing.

Japanese cuisine seems to be intimidating but like any other codified cuisine, it relies in practice on a standard set of tricks. These tricks are so general that you can use them to elevate your Italian, Indian or Thai cuisine to the next level once you understand the thrust of the tricks.

This leads up to a fairly general point. In order to get "inside" a different cuisine, you must master its internal grammar. And there is always an internal grammar. You have to use your powers of empathy to enter into an entirely foreign mindset. What lies there will frequently revolutionize your thinking because it will cause you to unlearn all the accreted prejudices of your own life so far.

Enough philosophizing, O CC! How about the recipe, eh?

This is a classic winter one-stop shop. It relies on the precision of individual execution but it's completely straightforward.

The vegetables and the fishcake are simmered in the dashi. (We've talked about dashi being the foundation of Japanese cuisine here.) The soba are cooked until al dente. The whole thing is combined in a bowl with some nori (seen on the right hand side to give textural interest) and many Japanese would happily top it with furikake (although the CC didn't do it.)

Also, this is a relatively more "purist" recipe. The soba means that you are looking for a more "clean" taste. Had the CC been using the relatively prosaic udon, he would've happily added in some miso to get more of that umami. Tradition dictates a cleaner taste for the spare soba.



Ingredients

4 cups dashi
2 tbsp mirin
3 tbsp soy sauce
1/2 tbsp rice vinegar

2 cups mountain vegetables
soba
6 sheets of nori
1 kamaboko (fish cake)

Recipe

Cut the fish cake diagonally into elliptical disks.

Simmer the fish cake and vegetable in the dashi with the mirin, vinegear and the soy sauce.

Meanwhile, separately cook the soba until al dente. It must have a bite. Drain immediately and cool in an ice bath.

Add the soba to individual bowls. Top with the dashi, vegetables and fish cake. Serve on the side with the nori sheets cut into triangles.

Making Yogurt

Making yogurt is so straightforward that the CC is surprised it's not more commonly known. When the CC was making it, two separate people commented on the fact the milk will get "spoilt".

Well, DUH!

Yogurt is spoiled milk. So is cheese for that matter. So are miso, kimchi, and all other sour pickles. It's the precision of the spoilage that matters not the fact that it's "spoilt."

Good grief.

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, yogurt doesn't come from the supermarket. It's spoilt milk and it's important that it be "spoilt" in the right way.

Over millenia, we as a species are symbiotic with a class of bacteria known collectively as lactobacilli. (Literally, milk-bacteria.)

We co-exist and they do wonderful things for us in our guts. That's why antibiotics make you feel so queasy at the end of the dose. They wipe out all the bacteria in our body and we can no longer digest anything that well. (Incidentally, a lot of what we consider "digestion" is being done by the bacteria in our gut not by humans but's that for a different post.)

Anyway, making yogurt is dead straightforward. The only hard part in winter is setting it in a warm enough place.

Ingredients

4 cups milk
1/2 cup active yogurt

Recipe

Heat the milk in a non-reactive pan until it comes to just under a boil. You are both killing all the other bacteria present in the milk and changing the proteins to be more receptive to making yogurt.

Cool the milk down to about 110°F (just above human temperature.) The old wives' method is to see if a finger inserted in the milk is comfortable or not. Above this temperature, you will kill all the bacteria introduced later.

Add the yogurt and whisk it into the milk. You are basically doing a precise "spoilage".

Let it sit in a warm spot for about 8 hours. It takes less time in summer and a little longer in winter.

Refrigerate and repeat.

Comeback

Every blog needs a comeback and now that the CC is back, he's shelling ten pounds of peas that he bought.