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

Hiyashi Tan-Tan ((冷やしたんたん)

One of the wondrous things about ramen is that it gives Japanese chefs full freedom to explore creativity outside the traditional norms of washoku. It allows them to escape the "wa" (和) of the washoku (和食) — the "Japanese-ness" of meal formats, rules, etc.

Every culture has some escape pod by which they can break the rules and are no longer subject to the dictates of "traditional culture". You need a release mechanism for creativity and rebellion.

Ramen is unambiguously Chinese and hence "foreign" however the Japanese have adapted it, refined it, and taken it to great heights. In the spirit of experimentation, it's not unusual to find "Thai Ramen" and "Indian Ramen" and "Italian Seafood Ramen", etc. in Tokyo. Any number of tricks from other cuisines are amenable as long as they ultimately get integrated into the ramen format.

The CC first ate the dish at a restaurant near his former workplace. It's a riff on a riff on a riff.

The owner of the restaurant is Burmese who ran away to Japan, lived there for a decade, and in spite of marrying Japanese, was unable to get a permanent visa. The couple opted for "life, liberty and happiness" and Japan's loss is New York's gain.

Tan-tan men is a variation on the classic Sichuanese dan-dan mian (担担面) — the spicy-tingly noodles with ground pork, pickled vegetables, and chili oil.

The Japanese version sticks to the idea broadly. It somehow got caught up with the very Sichuanese doubanjiang (辣豆瓣酱) possibly because its umami is very similar to miso.

So the ground pork is stir-fried with ginger, garlic, scallions and toban jan (as it's called in Japanese) until you have a loose dry mixture.

The ramen noodles are topped with an intense pork broth, the spicy ground pork mixture, slivered scallions, etc. This is a broad idea. The specifics depend on the creativity of each chef. You'd probably find slivered cucumbers or bean sprouts. It may be topped with rayu (chili oil.) It all depends.

Ramen, being served piping hot is cold weather food. Japan has blistering summers and a history of a lack of air-conditioning. The very hot weather dish, hiyashi chūka, featured here often is a response to that.

Hiyashi tan-tan is the bastard love child of hiyashi chūka and tan-tan men as conceived by a Burmese entrepreneur trained in Japan to satiate the ramen-crazy Yankees in a blistering New York summer.

What could be cooler than that?

There are some elegant subtle melodies inside it that make it sing.

Traditional ramen is frequently made with stock made from pork bones. It has a milky-white color.

The stock here is much lighter as befits a summer dish. Seafood-based or chicken-based which has been hit with a solid amount of sesame paste. Traditional Japanese sesame powder (gomashio) is made with roasted sesame seeds and has a brownish color. This one is clearly made with unroasted ones which gives the broth the same intense milky-white color. The CC strongly suspects that the restauranteur is just using tahini thus introducing a Middle-Eastern ingredient. It's New York, after all. Why not?

The advantage of cold-ingredients pre-prepared to a restaurant should be obvious but one of the complete non-negotiables is that the ramen has to be made fresh. You can dunk it in ice-water to cool it down but it must be freshly made.

Since the recipe clearly has diverged so far from its roots, such as they are, the CC feels absolutely no shame in diverging further. It would almost be regretful to stick to the format. The pork has been subbed by ground seafood (non-traditional) and bamboo shoots (absolutely traditional.) The cucumbers and scallions are retained in the summer heat.

It's the beauty of ramen. Within the broad tradition, as Cole Porter might have put it, "Anything goes".


Ingredients

(serves 2)

Dashi

2 pieces kombu
4 cups water
1/2 cup dried shrimp (or bonito flakes or both)

1/3 cup sesame seeds

Ground Pork

1/2" ginger
2 cloves garlic
1 tbsp toban jan
1 tbsp soy sauce
sugar (to balance)
peanut oil

1/2 cup ground pork (or ground seafood or ground chicken)
1/2 cup bamboo shoots

2 packages ramen

cucumber
carrots
scallions

sesame oil

Recipe

Note 1: Once the sesame paste is stirred into the cool broth, you cannot reheat it again. The broth and paste will separate which will destroy the texture. It must have its ice-cold white texture.

Note 2: Mound the pile of the ground pork mixture in the center. The toppings should be to the side. Yes, this is "only" aesthetics but it really goes a long way to emphasizing the cold-hot nature of the dish. The spicy pork with the ice-cold ingredients. It will all turn red-gold once you start slurping.

Note 3: If you have time, soak the sesame seeds in water. Don't worry too much about this step. You can always loosen the sesame paste with the dashi you make.

Note 4: The whole recipe is eminently scalable and can be made ahead of time. Except the ramen. They must be made fresh. You'll probably learn the hard way the science behind this step.

Note 5: It takes a while to chill all the ingredients especially the broth. Maybe the CC's fridge is crappy but it took more than 6 hours to get it down to the right temperature.

First, make the dashi. Heat up the kombu with the water. Just before the water boils, fish the kombu out and discard. If you don't do it, the broth will turn bitter. Add the dried shrimp/dried anchovies/bonito flakes and bring to a loose boil. Let it steep for at least 15 minutes. Pass the broth through a double layer of paper towels. You should be left with a clear golden broth.

Meanwhile, take the soaked sesame seeds and grind them to a fine paste in a mortar and pestle. Add some of the above dashi if you need to loosen the paste. Add the paste to the dashi and add salt. Set aside and let it chill.

Cut up the cucumber, carrots, scallions into long very thin batons of the same size and set aside to chill.

Make the ground pork mixture. Smash up the ginger and garlic in a mortar and pestle to a paste. Heat up some peanut oil in a skillet. When shimmering, add the ginger-garlic paste. Fry for a bit. Add the toban jan and fry for a little bit. Add the ground pork, soy sauce and sugar and let it cook until it is dry. You will probably need to add 2-3 tbsp of water to make sure it doesn't burn. Add the bamboo shoots towards the end. Take off the heat and cool. You can store this for a few days. Chill it.

When ready to serve, make the ramen. The ones the CC has require 2.5 minutes. Immediately dunk in an ice bath.

Top the ramen with the chilled dashi. Put the ground pork mixture in the center. The cut up scallions, carrots and cucumbers to the side.

(You can add sesame oil but that's gilding the lily.)

Slurp the intense icy awesomeness.

Dog Days of Summer

When it's crazy hot, you just need some "chilled Chinese". (Recipe in the link.)

Hiyashi Chūka (冷やし中華)

Hiyashi Chūka (冷やし中華)

Literally "Chilled Chinese", this is the summer dish in Japan that only shows up on menus when the summer heat turns oppressive. Restaurants love it, since except for the ramen, the dish consists only of assembly. All the components are pre-made and chilled down ahead of time.

It's exactly as rock-star as it sounds. Perfect cold dish for the insane summer heat just like this week here.

There is an ugly fact here that is going to upset most readers.

Precision of effect frequently requires substantial expenditure of means.

Each piece needs to be precisely made, cut up, and "chilled" and then the whole gets put together. It's not at all hard but it does go against that "effortless" summer dish mojo.

So why is the CC sabotaging his own readership with something that takes effort?

The answer is the sheer awesomeness of the dish with ingredients that can be stored for another day.

What is it?

It's cold noodles with a umami-laden gingery sweet-and-salty sauce and cold toppings. Unlike salads, the sauce sits at the bottom of the dish. You mix whatever ingredients you like for the "next slurp" and, let's face it, you need to slurp the ramen, people! The ingredients have been arranged at the top for visual interest not for "mixing". Each mixed-up slurp is going to be unique and umami-laden thanks to the personal mixing and the sauce.

The dish can only be described as "cold magic for a hot summer's day".

It is absolutely modern and in spite of its name it's no more "Chinese" than the CC is. It's Japanese through and through. The name is advertising. Every culture likes "foreign" stuff because exotic stuff sells and this dish fits the bill. It could never have existed before the age of refrigeration. The tastes are purely Japanese and only the noodles are "kinda sorta vaguely" Chinese. Don't let the name fool you.

(There's a general trend here. Names of dishes that contain a country/place rarely originate in the country/place named. For example, French Fries, Chinese Chop-Suey, Pad Thai, Baked Alaska, Hamburger, etc. This list is long!)

The dish follows the rules of washoku (和食) even though it is not really traditional. Five flavors; five colors; visual interest.

Typically, you would work with five ingredients plus the ramen but the CC had most of the stuff in his apartment; he was bored, and he is a little bit crazy (Really?!? Who'd think that?)

Let's enumerate the ingredients starting from the "6 o' clock position".

• Simmered lotus roots.
• Simmered shiitake mushrooms in savory sauce.
• Wakame.
• Eggs cooked "mollet".
• Pickled carrots with sesame.
• Crab-stick.
• (Egg).
• Crab-stick.
• Cucumber.

In the center we have cherry tomatoes, strips of nori and "Chinese chives" (nira - にら).

There is one deviation that makes it "modern modern" (to ape the modern way of talking.) Traditionally, the eggs would have been cooked in a Japanese-style omelette and cut into strips. The rest is pretty much conventional.


As pointed out the dish is a game of assembly. Each of the ingredients was cooked or cut up and chilled in the refrigerator. When the time came to serve the dish, the ramen was cooked and quickly chilled in ice-water and the dish assembled. It's also easiest if you just chill the plates in the freezer ahead of time. That way everything stays cold.

Everything serves two but you are welcome to make more and store it. Each cooked component stores really well and you can always quickly cut up the other stuff in a few minutes.

Also if you read the recipe carefully, the sequence in which to make things is clearly to make the dashi first, then simmer the crab sticks, then the lotus roots, then add the ingredients to make the mushrooms, and use the reduced sauce as a component in the dipping sauce. That way everything gets used up and no flavors are wasted.

This sort of complex sequencing is really the heart of many "hard" dishes. In order to not repeat things, you must sequence them out correctly up-front.

Vegetables

Ingredients

8 cherry tomatoes
1 small cucumber
Japanese-style pickled carrots (just use fresh if you don't have this)
4-5 Chinese chives

Recipe

Cut the tomatoes in half. The cucumber, carrot and chives must be cut into long thin strips. Set aside and chill.

Seaweed

Ingredients

1/2 tsp dried wakame
1 sheet nori

Recipe

In a small bowl add cold water to the dried wakame. The nori must be cut into fine strips. You can drain the wakame just before assembly.

Crab Sticks, Lotus Roots & Egg

Ingredients

2 cups dashi
4-5 crab-sticks
1 small lotus root.
1 egg

Recipe

The crab sticks are generally frozen. Bring the dashi to a boil and cook them for about 3 minutes. Lift out and set aside.

Add the lotus roots to the dashi and let them cook for about 4-5 minutes. Lift them out and set aside.

Cook the eggs mollet-style in a separate pot with some water. 7 minutes. Immediately plunge them into an ice bath. Peel when cooled and set aside. You can slice them right before serving.

Simmered Mushrooms

Ingredients

8 dried shiitake mushrooms.
1 cup dashi
4 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. brown sugar

Recipe

Combine the ingredients and bring to a boil. Let it cook uncovered for about 8 minutes until the shiitake mushrooms are cooked through. You can reduce the sauce and use it in the dipping sauce.

Dipping Sauce

Ingredients

1/3 cup dashi
2 tbsp. soy sauce
2 tbsp. black sugar
2 tbsp. sesame oil
1 tbsp. grated ginger

Recipe

The measurements are a little approximate. Mix everything together like a vinaigrette. You will need to taste it and make sure it has the right balance of sweet and salty tastes. The dashi will provide the intense umami.

Ramen

Ingredients

2 packages frozen ramen
2 tbsp. roasted sesame seeds

Recipe

NOTE: The frozen ramen available in the Japanese grocery store are the preferred ones. They are the ones made traditional-style with alkaline water. They will look pale yellow.

Roast the sesame seeds on a medium-hot skillet until they are golden and set aside.

Prepare an ice-bath. Then in a large pot, bring water to a boil and add the frozen ramen. Cook as per the instructions. The ones the CC had said 2 minutes and 30 seconds. Yes, this level of precision matters.

Immediately drain them and plunge them in the ice-bath to ensure that they stop cooking and chill down. Drain.

Now assemble everything. Ramen in the center. Pour the sauce over it. Add the toppings all around. and on top. Strew the sesame seeds all over. Serve at once.

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.

Greek Salad

Weekday Ramen

Nasi Lemak

"Thai" Salad with Cucumbers & Peanuts

There's nothing "Thai" about the salad but it's made by keeping Thai cooking principles firmly in mind.

The dressing was made by blending galangal, Thai green chillies, some kaffir lime leaves and lemongrass in water and passing the result through a sieve. To that was added some nahm pla (fish sauce), lime juice and palm sugar, and turned into a vinaigrette. The resulting vinaigrette was complex - salty, sweet, sour, hot with just a little bit of a bitter edge. In short, "Thai".

To top it all there were thinly sliced cucumbers sprinkled with fine sea salt and crushed peanuts.

How you ask, gentle reader, did it taste?

It fuckin' kicked ass is what it did!

Cucumber Gazpacho

Ingredients

2 lbs cucumber (peeled, coarsely chopped)
8-10 sorrel leaves
2 cloves garlic
4 cups yogurt

8-10 dried baguette slices

salt
black pepper

Recipe

Blanch the sorrel leaves really quickly (less than 15 seconds or so or they will just "melt".)

Soak the bread in some water for about 15 minutes.

Pull it out, squeeze the water out. Place all the ingredients in a blender, and blend.

Pass through a fine sieve.

Chill and serve.