Hotspots and hotpots

A few years ago, I left the town I’d lived in for over 20 years because there wasn’t any reason left to stay any more.  And because the time was right, the leaving was easy.  But of course there’s stuff you miss:  friends, walks along the river, friendly faces down the street, and my wholefoods shop.

Yes, my wholefoods shop.  There was a time when it was my shopping hotspot: 3/4 of my household food budget was spent on fruit, veg, and stuff bought at the wholefoods’, and 1/4 at the supermarket.  It wasn’t just that what I bought there was wholesome and cheap, but I loved the experience of shopping there.  I’m sure that there must have been times when I was rushed and cranky and would have wished for the convenience of rushing in and picking up a pre-packaged kilo of whatever wholegrain goodie I needed, but I can’t remember any.  I just remember shopping there as an unrushed, almost meditative activity, like grocery shopping seldom is any more.  Go in, grab a baggie, open up a bin full of wheat, soybeans, or oats, scoop some out with the metal cup and fill the baggie up.  Weigh out a jar you’ve brought and fill it up with honey or tahini.  Help yourself to the precise amount of herb or spice you need from the dozens of jars on the counter.  Grind your own peanut butter.  Order a soft-serve banana “ice cream”, made by running whole frozen bananas through the Champion juicer.

I don’t have a wholefoods place nearby any more.  I’m sure my diet suffers because of it (where do I buy large quantities - but not bulk - of non-GM soybeans for my unused soymilk maker?), but even if I did have one, I wonder whether I’d get the same pleasure.  After all, I was a stay-at-home mum in that small town, and although time was still at a premium, I was able to set some aside for shopping there.  These days I hold down jobs, plural, and what would I do?  I don’t know.

But a couple of days ago I found myself in my old town.  It is still so familiar, but I feel so foreign in it now, except in once place.  For the first time in 3 1/2 years, and urged by my younger son who has been craving that peanut butter all this time, I went to my wholefoods shop.

I scooped up burghul, quinoa, chia seed, and three-grain porridge into baggies, let my son grind up not one, but two containers of peanut butter and pour out some gorgeous red stringybark honey, and bought a massive container of the best fruit mince in the world – citrusy and rich, but without the customary suet.  And we had an awesome time.  Heaps fun.  Sure:  I didn’t buy anything so exotic that couldn’t have been picked up (albeit in smaller quantities) at the supermarket, but would the experience have been as good?  My grin as I walked out of the wholefoods shop munching on an almond-coated fresh date treat could have told you all you need to know.

A two-and-a-half-hour drive home later, I put the barley and chickpeas I bought to good use and kept the good vibes going as the temperature dropped outside and I cozied up in the warmth of the place – and person – I am not foreign to these days.   

BARLEY AND CHICKPEA HOTPOT WITH CHORIZO AND CHARD

OK, yes:  this does contain rather a lot of oil.  But it makes for such a luscious dish and delicious juices that you’ll be begging to mop up with good bread.  Go on – thanks to all those good ingredients, it won’t hurt you.
(6 servings)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil, or EVOO and vegetable oil, half and half

1 red onion, roughly chopped

4 garlic cloves, roughly chopped

4 chorizos, sliced

1 cup barley, washed

2 cups cooked chickpeas

1 bunch Swiss chard (silverbeet), stalks and leaves separated

4 cups water

2 tbsp. tomato paste

Salt and freshly ground pepper to taste

What you do:

1.  Heat olive oil in flameproof casserole over medium heat.  Add onion and garlic, and sauté, stirring occasionally, until onions are translucent.

2.  Add chorizos, barley, chickpeas, sliced chard stalks, water, and tomato paste.  Bring to the boil, then cook at a high simmer for 30 min.

3.  Add chopped chard leaves, and salt and pepper to taste.  This isn’t a soup, but there should be just enough liquid left over in the bottom of the pot to steam the chard; if there isn’t, add a little water.  (Not much - 2 tbsp. maximum.)  Increase heat to high, jam lid on, and cook for 10-15 min, stirring once or twice, until chard is cooked through.  Serve hot. 

Yumbo McGillicutty!

The sushi birthday cake

Who are these people that can cook an entire four-course dinner and take photographs as they go so that they can blog about it later?  Do they actually keep family and friends waiting for their food, or are there no friends and family and they just cooked the dinner for the purpose of blogging about it?  What happens to the quality of the dishes while they’re waiting to the photographed?  And what happens to the dishes that have been photographed: do they get eaten, or thrown away?  I don’t know the answer to any of these questions.  I do know, however, that some people are supremely organised, and some have photographic setups - and even photographers - on standby.  Personally, I just can’t do it.  At least, not when I’m in charge of a multi-course dinner.  I only cook to feed, and when there’s more than one course, even the most simple, fuss-free dinner acquires a sense of urgency and timing:  not just timing in the cooking, but dishes have to be served at their peak, and staggering the service is a particular art.  You have to catch diners not too early when they’re still savouring a previous dish, when they’re ready for the next course, but not desperate.

At any rate, even without all these considerations I wonder if I’d be able to manage it because at my house, as soon as a dish is ready, FOOM!  It disappears.

As happened with my son’s birthday dinner which included mussels done two ways - with miso béchamel and lup cheung - a birthday sushi “cake”, Chinese-style roast duckling with rice and sesame-dressed greens, and an île flottante.  Pictures?  Not a chance.  At least, except for one item, when my sister restrained my knife-wielding hand:  “Wait!  Get a picture of it first!”

The item in question was Runny’s chirashi-sushi birthday cake, which I’ve posted about before.  Much as I loved the idea of the chirashi-sushi ("scattered sushi") cake, I was a little whelmed by my results, so was quite unprepared for the reception it got.  Guests were totally entranced by it, and what’s more, absolutely devoured it - even the two sushi-hating diners sitting at the table.  It’s certainly a fun, friendly way to serve sushi, and certainly right up the alley of someone like my son, who loves sushi, and isn’t particularly fussed about sweets and will consider a chocolate cake a waste of time.

I had to adapt the ingredients somewhat, but it was still a hit:  one of those simple dishes that provide far more reward than effort - and expense - extended.

I’ve also provided the recipe for the mussels, because dammit, they were good.  Each and every single one of four kilos of the things disappeared, and that tells you more than any picture ever could.

CHIRASHI-SUSHI BIRTHDAY CAKE

(8 servings)

You may have made sushi rice before, but I’ve included the instructions nonetheless.  You’ll need to have a fan on standby.  A ladylike hand fan will do, but if you want to avoid the impulse to scream uncontrollably after a few minutes, an electric one is the thing.  You can have all the toppings ready and make the sushi rice cake base up to a few hours ahead, but assemble cake just before serving.  I promise - it’s quick!

Ingredients:

For the sushi rice -

1 1/2 cups sushi or medium-grain rice

2 cups water

3 tbsp. (45ml) rice vinegar

2 tbsp. sugar

1 tsp. salt

To fill and top cake -

3 eggs

soy sauce, to taste

Top (ie. green) from 1 spring onion

1 tbsp. bonito flakes

beet juice, as needed (unless you’re Jenny Kee, I can’t imagine you needing more than 1 tsp)

95g. tin Japanese-style tuna, drained and broken up with a fork

50g. salmon roe

100g. smoked salmon

1/2 sheet roasted nori

What you do:

1.  Wash rice in several changes of water until water runs clear.  Add 2 cups water, and cook in rice cooker or covered saucepan on stovetop until rice is tender and water is absorbed.  While rice is cooking, combine rice vinegar, sugar and salt, and stir until sugar and salt are dissolved.  Turn rice out into a shallow bowl, and stir with a rice paddle while sprinkling with vinegar dressing.  Keep stirring with rice paddle while simultaneously fanning rice.  This quick cool-down and stirring gives you the essential texture and glossiness.  Set aside.

2.  Whisk eggs and season to taste with soy sauce.  Scramble eggs in a greased pan over medium-high heat until dry and fluffy.  Set aside.  Cut spring onion green into eight long, very thin strips.  Place in a bowl of ice water to curl and crisp.     

3.  Line a 15cm loose-bottomed cake tin with plastic wrap.  Divide rice in two.  Into the first half, mix 1 tbsp. bonito flakes and enough beet juice to tint rice a delicate pink.  Spoon into cake tin, pressing down well with a spoon.  Mix remaining rice with tuna, and spoon on top of pink rice, pressing down as before.

4.  Now it’s time for the fun stuff:  assembling the cake.  Unmould sushi rice onto a serving dish.  Cover surface with scrambled eggs.  Spoon salmon roe onto scrambled egg.  Spread out to form a circle, leaving a 2.5cm edge all around.  Cut smoked salmon into eight strips and roll each one into a “rose”.  Arrange on edge of cake.  Decorate with spring onion curls as desired.  Cut nori into two strips, then cut each strip into triangles.  Press triangles onto side of cake.  Serve immediately.

MUSSELS TWO WAYS

Mussels can be cooked and topped with filling up to a day ahead.  By the way, I don't make béchamel sauce on the stovetop any more; the microwave method isn't quicker, but it is almost "hands free", leaving you free to do stuff other than standing and stirring.  And stirring.  And stirring.  And stirring.

Ingredients:

4 kg. mussels

Chinese cooking wine (opt.)

For miso béchamel:

50g. butter

3 tbsp. flour

400ml milk

2 heaped tbsp. brown miso

For lup cheung filling:

2 rashers middle bacon (200g. approx), very finely chopped

1 lup cheung sausage, very finely chopped

1/2 red pepper (capsicum), very finely chopped

1 spring onion, very finely chopped

1 tsp. minced garlic

1 tsp. minced ginger

1 tsp. red wine vinegar

What you do:

1.  Put mussels in a large pot with enough water or Chinese cooking wine to cover base.  Jam lid on and cook over high heat until mussels are open – about 5 minutes.  (Contrary to popular belief, if your mussels were fresh and live to begin with, an unopened mussel isn’t dead, it just has a strong abductor muscle.  Simply slip a knife in and gently prise it open.)  Carefully lift out mussels one at a time.  Detach shell half not holding the mussel and discard.  Now for the hateful bit:  with kitchen scissors, snip the beard off each mussel.  Grah.  But it has to be done.  Set aside.

2.  To make miso béchamel, place butter in microwave-proof bowl, and microwave until melted.  Whisk in flour, and microwave on HIGH for 1 minute.  Whisk in milk.  Microwave on HIGH, whisking every two minutes, until sauce boils and thickens.  Place miso in a small bowl.  Add a few tablespoons of hot béchamel, and stir to dissolve miso.  Add this mixture to béchamel, and whisk until smooth.

3.  To make lup cheung filling, place all ingredients in a small, greased frying pan.  Sauté until vegetables are crisp-tender.  Remove from heat, and stir in vinegar.

4.  Preheat oven to 250oC.  Top half of mussels with teaspoonsful of miso béchamel, and half with teaspoonsful of lup cheung filling, and arrange on baking dishes.  Bake until miso béchamel is bubbling, and sausage filling is sizzling and beginning to brown - 5-10 minutes.  Serve immediately.

Oishii!

Runny rocks

Cooking should make you happy.  It isn’t martyrdom, and if you don’t enjoy the process, even if the results are fabulous, really, you should quit.  As Erin Pizzey said in her unforgettable Slut’s Cookbook (unfortunately out of print):

“Meals shared by members of a family or by friends should be cheerful times, not silent battles or competitions. […] Home cooking often comes with such a heavy measure of guilt that a tin of beans and a happy smile are preferable to the sight of women… tottering around the kitchen, muttering the equivalents of ‘Oy vay’.”

A person who makes me happy is RunnyRunny999, whose channel on YouTube is joyful and infectious.  Runny loves to cook, and as you’ll see at the end of his clips, loves to eat.  His dishes are simple and good and are for anyone who hasn’t been conned into thinking that home cooking should look like it came out of a commercial kitchen or been professionally styled (what I call Masterchef Disease).  Runny is also sweet and absolutely hilarious.

How sweet and hilarious?  Well, he actually cooked a request for my daughter’s birthday, and… Well, my description won’t do it justice.  Check it out.

Thanks, Runny.  You rock!


PS:  Sorry I can't format the vid to look right on the page!  Augh!

Poha

OK so  I posted my recycled recipe for the poha leftovers before posting the recipe for the poha itself.  But this is an actual recipe, you know, with quantities and proper ingredients and times for cooking and stuff.  Oh, the pressure.

I read about poha a couple of weeks ago when looking at the brilliant Time photo essay, What the World Eats.  Without passing judgement whatsoever, it’s just fascinating to see what people eat on a daily basis, because food isn’t just one of the defining facets of culture, but it can also reflect everything from socioeconomic status, to religion, to the topographical landscape.  And the families in the pictures aren’t just asked to show what they eat in a week, but also to tell what they love to eat.  Hands down the family that gave me the biggest kick was the Melansons of Iqaluit, Nunavut Territory, Canada, who list their favourite foods as “narwhal, polar bear, extra cheese stuffed crust pizza, watermelon”, but the ones who sent me Googling were the Patkars of Ujjain, India, whose family recipe is “Sangeeta Patkar's Poha (Rice Flakes)”.

At this point, I felt cheated, because I felt I should know what these rice flakes were, but didn’t.  Even though I love and adore Indian food, maybe it was just something too exotic for me to have encountered before, I thought.  I asked Google.  Google said no.  Google said that poha is also known as flattened rice or beaten rice, and is very popular in India, particularly for breakfast.  Oh.  Thanks, Google.

Thick poha

At the Indian grocer’s near work, I found that poha comes in several thicknesses, and is a top convenience food.  Not only is it ready in half the time as rice, but you only need to rinse or soak it before cooking, if cooking it at all.  And it is light and fluffy when ready, in the way that you want rice to be but sometimes isn’t.

Poha with potatoes is a pretty standard combination, and once I knew what other cooks do to make it, I made my own.  But this is just the beginning, I reckon, and I can already see the possibilities for poha pilaf, poha ruz bish'irreeyeh, or even buttered poha with Parmesan on the side of something equally yummy.

While I enjoy a slice of cold pizza for breakfast as much as the next person (oh go on, admit it), and this poha is truly delicious, I don't think I could have it for brekkie.  So I served it for dinner with spinach sautéed in onion and garam masala and thick yoghurt stirred in.  But you don’t need an accompaniment.  This comforting bowlful o’carbs has pretty much everything you could want or need, as evidenced by the three main men in my life, who wolfed down massive helpings.

SPICED POHA WITH POTATOES AND CHICKPEAS

(serves 6)

Ingredients:

2 cups thick poha

2 tbsp. oil

2 tsp. mustard seeds

1 onion, chopped

2 green chilies, chopped

1 tsp. turmeric

a few curry leaves

a pinch of chili powder (opt.)

2 medium potatoes, diced

1 large tomato, chopped

1 cup cooked chickpeas (tinned are OK)

1 cup frozen peas

1/4 cup slivered or flaked almonds

salt and pepper, to taste

chopped coriander (cilantro), to taste

fresh lime or lemon juice, to taste

What you do:

1.  Put the poha to soak in a bowl of cold water while you prepare the vegetable mixture.

2. Heat oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat.  Add mustard seeds.  When they pop and sputter, reduce the heat to medium and add the onion and chilies.  Sauté, stirring often, until onion is translucent, then add turmeric, curry leaves, and chili powder if using.  Stir constantly until aromatic.

3. Add potato and tomato, and jam the lid on.  Cook, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are tender but firm to the bite.  Add chickpeas, peas, and almonds, and allow to cook a few minutes.  Taste for salt and pepper, remembering that the poha is bland, so the flavour of the vegetable mixture will have to have oomph.

4. Drain poha, and stir into into vegetable mixture.  Jam lid on, and cook 5-7 min over low heat.  Fold in coriander and lime or lemon juice to taste.  Poha should be fluffy, so be careful when you do this so that you don’t break it down to mush.

 Swaadisht!

Recycling Fridays: Omurice

I started Recycling Fridays more for me than anyone else, because while in a commercial kitchen I have used every scrap of food that may otherwise have been thrown away, from leftover eggwash (make into an omelette and put into a sushi roll) to stale bread (bread pudding), I tend to have my moments of terrible wastefulness at home.  It’s a combination of busy-ness and fluctuating numbers of people in the house.  (Matter of fact, after my two older children moved out and I was just cooking for two for the first time in twenty years, I overcatered for the first six months or so.  Even though I know how to correctly estimate how much people will eat, the psychology of cooking for your own family is something else again and my hands would insist on throwing in more handfuls.)


But another combination of two things has given me a new resolution halfway through the year.  The first was the discovery of the Love Food Hate Waste site, which, along with its handy advice, has some scary stats that will make you think, such as the fact that 8.3 million tons of food are thrown away every year in the UK alone.  The second is a project I am planning for my students.  The project begins with the photo essay, What the World Eats, continues with an activity on eating like most of the world eats (try spending 90 cents on each meal), and finishes on Oxfam’s can-do advice with its 4-a-Week campaign.  It’s stuff anyone can do:  buy one more Fair Trade product a week, buy one food product from a developing country a week, go veggie once a week, and throw one less thing away.  Easy.


So we’re back to Fridays and recycling what’s left in the ‘fridge.  And again, it’s rice.  Well - not exactly.  It’s something rather more exotic:  a beautifully spiced poha, with potatoes and chickpeas (more on this next post).  I didn’t want to mess around with it too much because it’s delicious as is, so I decided to serve it up as omurice for brunch for me and my son.


Omurice is an Anglicised compound Japanese noun for a dish of eggs and rice.  To paraphrase the monorail episode of the Simpsons, “Omu means omelette, and rice means rice!”  At its most basic, you fry up some cooked rice and season it with ketchup.  Yes, ketchup.  Then you make a very gooey omelette, roll it, sit it on top, split it to allow the runny egg to flow over the rice, and top with a little more ketchup.  Yes, more ketchup.  And it is absolutely delicious, whether you have leftover plain rice, or something more tarted up.  More elaborate versions of omurice feature a drier omelette wrapped around a rice filling that can include chicken and other yummy things, but I really love how the rice combines with the runny egg, and the ritual of splitting the omelette open.  It’s marvellous. 


Now... I’m not going to give you detailed instructions nor provide a recipe, just because it’s so much fun watching people - samurai cooks who can handle a frying pan like a sword - make omurice on film.  In fact, the first time I ever saw omurice being made was the omurice scene from Tampopo, a Japanese film that is pretty much just a series of vignettes on food and sex.  Omurice is a popular dish in restaurants as well as at home, so you’ll often have chefs cooking omurice at restaurant windows to show off their skill and entice people in.  At home, your doggy sous-chef can help make a wrapped omurice that is wrapped around something that is suspiciously like arroz con pollo.

Here is the poha.  See the mustard seeds?  Yumbo McGillicutty!  When you fry your rice, don't crowd the pan, and keep the heat high, otherwise your rice will go mushy.  Besides - this is supposed to be a fast dish.  You want to spend five minutes on the entire thing, tops.

Add a little tomato ketchup, just to season.  Toss over high heat to coat.   Pile onto a warmed plate in a kind of oblong mound.  Your omu will only take a minute or two to cook, so the rice will stay plenty hot.

Sit your omu - hopefully yours won't look as mutant as mine - on top of the rice.  This is a three-egg omelette.

Split the omu with a sharp knife and open it up so that the egg flows over the rice.  Top with the sauce of your choice, although ketchup is traditional.  And I don't know how or why ketchup is traditional, but it is.

Oishi!

Recycling Fridays: Arancini

You see them in menus all over the place these days: arancini ("little oranges").  Made meatier and a little spicier and hailing from Sicily rather than Rome, they are known as supplì al telefono, or "telephone wires", so called because of the strands of cheese that form when you pull them apart.  But they are basically the same thing:  fried risotto balls with melty cheese in the middle.


They are very, very good, but barring some kind of desperate hormonal craving for arancini, it bugs me to see recipes for arancini specifying the risotto made from scratch.  Why not just say, "Got any leftover risotto?  Well, this is what you do!"  I mean, you're going to have to cool the risotto down anyway, meaning that not only do you have a two-stage cooking process (and the first one, if the risotto is properly made, is fairly laborious in terms of stirring-until-you-scream) ahead of you, but also the cooling process (at least an hour) in the middle, and ufa!  Enough already!  I'll buy one from the café next door to work on Monday!


But if you have any leftover risotto, then guess what?  This is what you do.  And you can even plan it ahead this way (Google "planned-over": the planned alternative to leftovers), because when you're not cooking industrial quantities, cooking a little extra is exactly as much hassle as cooking the amount you were going to cook in the first place.  Risotto is best when freshly made, and, as I remind the family when I call them to table, waits for no man, so no matter how nice the leftovers are for lunch the next day, they cannot approximate the perfection of the creamy plateful you had the night before.  Arancini, however, are beasties unto themselves and will transform whatever risotto you had in the 'fridge into something Very Special Indeed.


Our arancini today were as good as the risotto they were made from, and seeing as it was Bettsy Boy's risotto, it was pretty good, full of his standards:  bacon, chicken, and whatever vegies were in the crisper on Monday.




You will need:

• Leftover risotto of any persuasion
• Mozzarella cheese, or some other delicious melty cheese
• Egg
• Breadcrumbs (no, the egg and breadcrumbs are not a crumbing set, so relax)
• Vegetable oil, for frying

What you do:


Leftover risotto will be crumbly; you need to make it into a cohesive mass.  This is what the egg is for.  How much egg?  My daughter could tell you, through gritted teeth:  enough.  Break down the risotto in a bowl, and add beaten egg while mixing with your hands, until it's a consistency that will hold together when pressed.


Take a portion of risotto in your hand and press it into a flattish patty.  Place a cube of cheese on the patty, and fold your hand over to enclose it.  Pat with your hands to form a ball.  (Needless to say, you can make these whichever size you like.  Bite size, snack size... MAN SIZE!  Just make sure the size of your cheese cubes corresponds.) 


Roll balls in breadcrumbs.

Heat enough oil in a frying pan to deep-fry.  If you have a thermometer, you're after 180oC, and if you don't, you want a cube of bread dropped in the oil to be golden in 10-20 seconds.  Add arancini, but do not crowd the pan (this would make the temperature drop, making them absorb oil).  Cook for a few minutes each side, until golden.

Drain on paper towels, and allow to sit for a couple of minutes before serving.  This will allow the temperature to equalise and let the cheese melt further, prevent mouth blisters (I know whereof I speak), and yes, they'll still be satisfyingly crunchy on the outside.


Enjoy with a sauce, or on their own with salad.  Or just enjoy.  You know.