Hiyashi Chūka (冷やし中華)
Showing posts with label radishes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label radishes. Show all posts
Monday, May 30, 2016
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)
Saturday, May 14, 2016
Weekend Menu
Japanese meal
Nori sumashijiru (Clear nori soup)
Tuna sashimi (marinated in soy and mirin)
Mugi gohan (Barley rice)
Asparagus & shiitake ohitashi
Radishes "massaged" with sea salt
Sunday, September 7, 2014
Creativity and Radish Salad
What does creativity mean?
Creativity doesn't exist in the void otherwise babies would be creative geniuses which they clearly are not. They are a pile of mewling and shitting neuroses.
Creativity works in a context. You take what has come before you and you push it further. Edgier, more vibrant, more in tune with the society of today and tomorrow not yesterday.
Whether scientist or artist, creativity lies in pushing the boundaries outwards in different directions and not in the trivial way.
It's straightforward to make an Indian dish with a non-Indian ingredient like fava beans but true creativity comes from reimagining something that is a classic for good reason in a radically different context.
The triad of radish, salt and butter is a classic one. Radishes, cold butter, sprinkle of salt, sprinkle of herbs. Not exactly rocket science but a potent combination that has gotten many a French housewife and her English counterpart in the 19th century through a dry spell on the table.
Today that butter would be cultured unsalted butter but once upon a time that's all that was available. The defaults have changed so we have to work with the times and specify it.
Why does something so simple work? First off, you have the pungency of the radishes particularly in late summer that is cut down to size by the fat of the butter. The salt is necessary otherwise you wouldn't taste any of the herbs at all. Fatty, pungent, fragrant and salty. Your tongue and nose are loving it.
This combination is well known across the world. There is a classic Persian salad platter consisting of radishes, feta, and herbs. They are just piled onto a dish side by side and the eater can pick or choose as they please. The herbs can be more than one — parsley, mint, tarragon, pepper cress, flat chives all work. Paired with a flat lavash and tucked in, it's as simple as it is delightful.
It's the same combination of pungent radishes, salty fatty cheese, and herbs.
The CC is a big fan of the chef April Bloomfield. She's best known for her "nose-to-tail" eating philosophy which is ironic because she made her name cooking vegetables. Her vegetable dishes are beyond superb.
What's presented below is her version of the classic salad above. Note the care with which she reworks the classic combination and adapts it to an entirely different medium. You still have the same four ingredients — radishes, herbs, salt and fat.
Her description of how to make the salad is a little bit romantic but there's logic there. You can't make this without engaging your hands. You need to knead it to make it work.
This is not a salad you can make ahead of time. You have to serve it at once because you are smashing the basil with the salt and the aromatic component will be lost otherwise. You can prep most of it ahead of time though just there's a last minute component which is quite easy.
Ingredients
15 radishes (cut irregularly into large pieces)
1 cup basil leaves
Maldon sea salt
parmigiano-reggiano (cut into irregular chunks - some large, some thin)
3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (your best!)
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 cups arugula
Recipe
In a large bowl, combine the radishes with the basil and 3 healthy pinches of salt. Using your hands, grab handfuls of the mixture and sharply press the basil and salt against the radishes for about 30 seconds to release the basil's aromatic oils.
Add the parmesan and mix again with your hands until some of the cheese is creamy, some is in little chunks and some is still in larger dime-sized chunks.
Combine the lemon and olive oil into a vinaigrette. Toss with the arugula, and the mixture above and serve at once.
Creativity doesn't exist in the void otherwise babies would be creative geniuses which they clearly are not. They are a pile of mewling and shitting neuroses.
Creativity works in a context. You take what has come before you and you push it further. Edgier, more vibrant, more in tune with the society of today and tomorrow not yesterday.
Whether scientist or artist, creativity lies in pushing the boundaries outwards in different directions and not in the trivial way.
It's straightforward to make an Indian dish with a non-Indian ingredient like fava beans but true creativity comes from reimagining something that is a classic for good reason in a radically different context.
The triad of radish, salt and butter is a classic one. Radishes, cold butter, sprinkle of salt, sprinkle of herbs. Not exactly rocket science but a potent combination that has gotten many a French housewife and her English counterpart in the 19th century through a dry spell on the table.
Today that butter would be cultured unsalted butter but once upon a time that's all that was available. The defaults have changed so we have to work with the times and specify it.
Why does something so simple work? First off, you have the pungency of the radishes particularly in late summer that is cut down to size by the fat of the butter. The salt is necessary otherwise you wouldn't taste any of the herbs at all. Fatty, pungent, fragrant and salty. Your tongue and nose are loving it.
This combination is well known across the world. There is a classic Persian salad platter consisting of radishes, feta, and herbs. They are just piled onto a dish side by side and the eater can pick or choose as they please. The herbs can be more than one — parsley, mint, tarragon, pepper cress, flat chives all work. Paired with a flat lavash and tucked in, it's as simple as it is delightful.
It's the same combination of pungent radishes, salty fatty cheese, and herbs.
The CC is a big fan of the chef April Bloomfield. She's best known for her "nose-to-tail" eating philosophy which is ironic because she made her name cooking vegetables. Her vegetable dishes are beyond superb.
What's presented below is her version of the classic salad above. Note the care with which she reworks the classic combination and adapts it to an entirely different medium. You still have the same four ingredients — radishes, herbs, salt and fat.
Her description of how to make the salad is a little bit romantic but there's logic there. You can't make this without engaging your hands. You need to knead it to make it work.
This is not a salad you can make ahead of time. You have to serve it at once because you are smashing the basil with the salt and the aromatic component will be lost otherwise. You can prep most of it ahead of time though just there's a last minute component which is quite easy.
Ingredients
15 radishes (cut irregularly into large pieces)
1 cup basil leaves
Maldon sea salt
parmigiano-reggiano (cut into irregular chunks - some large, some thin)
3 tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil (your best!)
2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
2 cups arugula
Recipe
In a large bowl, combine the radishes with the basil and 3 healthy pinches of salt. Using your hands, grab handfuls of the mixture and sharply press the basil and salt against the radishes for about 30 seconds to release the basil's aromatic oils.
Add the parmesan and mix again with your hands until some of the cheese is creamy, some is in little chunks and some is still in larger dime-sized chunks.
Combine the lemon and olive oil into a vinaigrette. Toss with the arugula, and the mixture above and serve at once.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
A Summer Filipino Meal
The classic signature dish of Filipino cooking is the adobo.
In the great spirit of free-wheeling language that the Philippines subscribes to, and the fact that English loves verbalizing nouns, you can "adobo" anything!
Traditionally, it's been used for meats and seafoods but it extends to vegetables and all and sundry. It's one of the great meta-recipes of all time!
As with all classic dishes, if you query three people, you'd probably get thirty recipes so to invoke a broad generalization, you are looking at a cooked sauce of soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves and black peppercorns reduced to various degrees depending on the dish.
Filipinos from the Bicol region even add coconut milk but this is considered "strange". A friend's father once stage whispered to the CC, "'Some' people even add coconut milk!"
Some people indeed do! Some strange people indeed!
As the Japanese say, 十人十色 (ten people, ten colors — different strokes for different folks!)
The salt (from the soy sauce) and vinegar betray the tropical origins of the dish. An acidic dish like that can be stored without any refrigeration because bacteria cannot grow in that environment.
You might think that the vinegar would give it a really sharp taste but cooking the vinegar gives it this smooth rounded mellow taste that's hard to describe but entirely brilliant. It sets your taste buds alive without that mouth-puckering taste that a tart vinaigrette might invoke.
For this summer meal, since the CC has access to really fresh seafood, a squid adobo was made. The sauce is finished off with the ink which gives it an iodine-y edge of the sea. (All of this is extraordinarily traditional.)
The side salad is another classic accompaniment - radishes, tomatoes and roasted dried anchovies in a slightly spicy sour sauce.
They definitely do love their souring agents!
Radish Salad with Anchovies (Dilis)
Ingredients
4 red radishes (or 1 small daikon)
2 tomatoes
4-6 tbsp vinegar (to taste)
2 tbsp patis (Filipino fish sauce)
4 green chillies (minced)
2 tbsp minced ginger
black pepper
1/2 cup dried anchovies
Recipe
Cut the radishes really fine. A mandoline helps here. Chop the tomatoes.
Mix together everything but the anchovies. This stuff can be prepared ahead of time. Be warned that the mixture will leach water as time goes by. (Yes, this is desirable.)
(The CC keeps the above mixture in the fridge for ready access. He loves this dish beyond reason. It makes the perfect "no-cook" nutritionally-complete dish for summer with umami out the wazoo.)
Roast the dried anchovies on a skillet. They will burn really quickly since they are really really flat and small so you need to be careful. Set aside.
Right before serving, mix the dried anchovies with the mixture above including the liquid. Serve right away.
Adobong Pusit (Squid Adobo)
(Source: Burnt Lumpia.)
Ingredients
1 lb squid (squid ink separated)
1 large red onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup cane vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
8-12 black peppercorns
squid ink
Recipe
Clean the squid and separate the ink from the ink-sac. This is a messy process so proceed carefully. Cut the squid into rings and set aside.
(In a chicken adobo which doesn't have the blackness of the squid ink, the black peppercorns are kept whole but for a dish like this, you're better off grinding the peppercorns.)
In a pan, heat the oil. Fry the onions, garlic, and green chillies for a bit. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, water, black peppercorns and bay leaves. Let reduce for a bit.
(Your nose will tell you when the vinegar no longer has that sharp vinegary taste. There is a very very characteristic "adobo smell", and only experience can teach you this one at least until the CC invents Smell-O-Vision™!)
Bring to a boil. Take off the heat.
Toss in the squid, and squid ink. The heat will cook the squid just enough to be ready.
In the great spirit of free-wheeling language that the Philippines subscribes to, and the fact that English loves verbalizing nouns, you can "adobo" anything!
Traditionally, it's been used for meats and seafoods but it extends to vegetables and all and sundry. It's one of the great meta-recipes of all time!
As with all classic dishes, if you query three people, you'd probably get thirty recipes so to invoke a broad generalization, you are looking at a cooked sauce of soy sauce, vinegar, bay leaves and black peppercorns reduced to various degrees depending on the dish.
Filipinos from the Bicol region even add coconut milk but this is considered "strange". A friend's father once stage whispered to the CC, "'Some' people even add coconut milk!"
Some people indeed do! Some strange people indeed!
As the Japanese say, 十人十色 (ten people, ten colors — different strokes for different folks!)
The salt (from the soy sauce) and vinegar betray the tropical origins of the dish. An acidic dish like that can be stored without any refrigeration because bacteria cannot grow in that environment.
You might think that the vinegar would give it a really sharp taste but cooking the vinegar gives it this smooth rounded mellow taste that's hard to describe but entirely brilliant. It sets your taste buds alive without that mouth-puckering taste that a tart vinaigrette might invoke.
For this summer meal, since the CC has access to really fresh seafood, a squid adobo was made. The sauce is finished off with the ink which gives it an iodine-y edge of the sea. (All of this is extraordinarily traditional.)
The side salad is another classic accompaniment - radishes, tomatoes and roasted dried anchovies in a slightly spicy sour sauce.
They definitely do love their souring agents!
Radish Salad with Anchovies (Dilis)
Ingredients
4 red radishes (or 1 small daikon)
2 tomatoes
4-6 tbsp vinegar (to taste)
2 tbsp patis (Filipino fish sauce)
4 green chillies (minced)
2 tbsp minced ginger
black pepper
1/2 cup dried anchovies
Recipe
Cut the radishes really fine. A mandoline helps here. Chop the tomatoes.
Mix together everything but the anchovies. This stuff can be prepared ahead of time. Be warned that the mixture will leach water as time goes by. (Yes, this is desirable.)
(The CC keeps the above mixture in the fridge for ready access. He loves this dish beyond reason. It makes the perfect "no-cook" nutritionally-complete dish for summer with umami out the wazoo.)
Roast the dried anchovies on a skillet. They will burn really quickly since they are really really flat and small so you need to be careful. Set aside.
Right before serving, mix the dried anchovies with the mixture above including the liquid. Serve right away.
Adobong Pusit (Squid Adobo)
(Source: Burnt Lumpia.)
Ingredients
1 lb squid (squid ink separated)
1 large red onion, sliced
6 cloves garlic
2 green chillies
1 tbsp minced ginger
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 bay leaves
1/2 cup cane vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/3 cup water
8-12 black peppercorns
squid ink
Recipe
Clean the squid and separate the ink from the ink-sac. This is a messy process so proceed carefully. Cut the squid into rings and set aside.
(In a chicken adobo which doesn't have the blackness of the squid ink, the black peppercorns are kept whole but for a dish like this, you're better off grinding the peppercorns.)
In a pan, heat the oil. Fry the onions, garlic, and green chillies for a bit. Add the soy sauce, vinegar, water, black peppercorns and bay leaves. Let reduce for a bit.
(Your nose will tell you when the vinegar no longer has that sharp vinegary taste. There is a very very characteristic "adobo smell", and only experience can teach you this one at least until the CC invents Smell-O-Vision™!)
Bring to a boil. Take off the heat.
Toss in the squid, and squid ink. The heat will cook the squid just enough to be ready.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
Buttermilk Roast Chicken & Green Bean Salad
This is the closest you are likely to come to the ethereal ideal of the Southern fried chicken without frying the chicken.
It pulls out all the tricks of marination to make it memorable.
Most importantly, it can all be made ahead of time and quickly assembled on a Monday (attn: office monkeys!)
Also, this assembly totally and utterly rocks for a picnic (or an office) eaten at room temperature.
For the vegetarians, the side salad is slap-your-mama good™ so there's something in here for everyone.
It just requires a tiny bit of effort ahead of time. For about 5 minutes. Surely even you have that!
Ingredients (Buttermilk Roast Chicken)
8 chicken thighs, or legs (with skin)
2 cups buttermilk
5 cloves garlic (smashed)
1 tbsp sweet paprika
4 tbsp fresh ground pepper
2 tbsp sea salt
Recipe
Marinate the chicken with the buttermilk, smashed garlic, sweet paprika, pepper and sea salt for at least 24 hours. Preferably 48.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
On a baking dish, arrange the chicken legs. (Throw the marinade away.) Drizzle with olive oil lightly and sprinkle some more paprika, sea salt and black pepper.
Roast for roughly 30 minutes until they are a bit brown.
Ingredients (Green Bean Salad)
1 lb green beans (trimmed)
1 large red onion
2 stalks celery
4 radishes (sliced real thin)
1/2 cup whole almonds
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp sea salt
olive oil
Recipe
Slice the onion into really fine rings.
Whisk the vinegar, water, sugar and the sea salt together. Soak the onion rings in the mixture for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour.
Heat a small skillet with the olive oil. Fry the almonds until they are golden. Remove and let cool. When cool, cut into halves or thirds. (Yes, this matters. Roasting the almonds is simply not the same here.)
Assemble an ice bath. Water + Ice.
Heat a pot of water. Dunk the trimmed beans into the boiling water for about 5-6 minutes until tender. Dump out the water. Dump the beans into the ice-bath.
Remove the onions from the pickling liquid. Keep the liquid.
Assemble the salad. Beans, celery, radishes, almonds.
Make a vinaigrette with the pickling liquid and toss everything together.
Slap-your-mama™ while eating!
It pulls out all the tricks of marination to make it memorable.
Most importantly, it can all be made ahead of time and quickly assembled on a Monday (attn: office monkeys!)
Also, this assembly totally and utterly rocks for a picnic (or an office) eaten at room temperature.
For the vegetarians, the side salad is slap-your-mama good™ so there's something in here for everyone.
It just requires a tiny bit of effort ahead of time. For about 5 minutes. Surely even you have that!
Ingredients (Buttermilk Roast Chicken)
8 chicken thighs, or legs (with skin)
2 cups buttermilk
5 cloves garlic (smashed)
1 tbsp sweet paprika
4 tbsp fresh ground pepper
2 tbsp sea salt
Recipe
Marinate the chicken with the buttermilk, smashed garlic, sweet paprika, pepper and sea salt for at least 24 hours. Preferably 48.
Preheat the oven to 425°F.
On a baking dish, arrange the chicken legs. (Throw the marinade away.) Drizzle with olive oil lightly and sprinkle some more paprika, sea salt and black pepper.
Roast for roughly 30 minutes until they are a bit brown.
Ingredients (Green Bean Salad)
1 lb green beans (trimmed)
1 large red onion
2 stalks celery
4 radishes (sliced real thin)
1/2 cup whole almonds
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp sea salt
olive oil
Recipe
Slice the onion into really fine rings.
Whisk the vinegar, water, sugar and the sea salt together. Soak the onion rings in the mixture for at least 30 minutes, preferably an hour.
Heat a small skillet with the olive oil. Fry the almonds until they are golden. Remove and let cool. When cool, cut into halves or thirds. (Yes, this matters. Roasting the almonds is simply not the same here.)
Assemble an ice bath. Water + Ice.
Heat a pot of water. Dunk the trimmed beans into the boiling water for about 5-6 minutes until tender. Dump out the water. Dump the beans into the ice-bath.
Remove the onions from the pickling liquid. Keep the liquid.
Assemble the salad. Beans, celery, radishes, almonds.
Make a vinaigrette with the pickling liquid and toss everything together.
Slap-your-mama™ while eating!
Monday, October 3, 2011
Radish Salad with Dried Anchovies (Dilis)
This is an entirely inspired dish that you are unlikely to find in any Filipino cookbook. That's because it's a simple side-dish that is unlikely to make it into cookbooks which tend to feature fancier stuff.
It follows the most primitive principles of food. Use fresh ingredients, and touch them up minimally.
The ingredients are simplicity themselves - white radish (daikon), tomatoes, ginger, patis (fish sauce) and vinegar, along with dried anchovies (dilis.)
Served with warm rice, it's the perfect comfort food, and yet texturally complex and nutritionally complete.
Ingredients
4 tomatoes
1/2 radish
4-6 tbsp vinegar (to taste)
2 tbsp patis
4 green chillies (minced)
2 tbsp minced ginger
1/2 cup dried anchovies
salt to taste
Recipe
Cut the radish into paper-thin slices. A mandoline will help here.
Dice the tomatoes roughly.
Mix all the ingredients together except the anchovies.
Mix in the anchovies right before serving (so that they remain crisp and don't turn soggy.)
It follows the most primitive principles of food. Use fresh ingredients, and touch them up minimally.
The ingredients are simplicity themselves - white radish (daikon), tomatoes, ginger, patis (fish sauce) and vinegar, along with dried anchovies (dilis.)
Served with warm rice, it's the perfect comfort food, and yet texturally complex and nutritionally complete.
Ingredients
4 tomatoes
1/2 radish
4-6 tbsp vinegar (to taste)
2 tbsp patis
4 green chillies (minced)
2 tbsp minced ginger
1/2 cup dried anchovies
salt to taste
Recipe
Cut the radish into paper-thin slices. A mandoline will help here.
Dice the tomatoes roughly.
Mix all the ingredients together except the anchovies.
Mix in the anchovies right before serving (so that they remain crisp and don't turn soggy.)
Friday, January 1, 2010
Arugula Salad with Prosciutto, Beluga Lentils & Radishes
Yeah, the smiley face with glasses is intentional!
Happy New Year!
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Happy New Year!
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Monday, December 14, 2009
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009
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