One of my favourite Japanese restaurants in San Francisco is Maki. It’s a little hole in the wall in Japan Center next to a bookstore and while it would be hard to go wrong with anything on the menu, their specialty is Wappa Meshi. It’s a steamed rice dish that’s a specialty of the Fukishima prefecture in central Japan.
Wappa Meshi is basically rice steamed in a cyprus container with some type of fish or mountain vegetable on top. Since moving out east I haven’t been able to find a place that serves this regional specialty, so I decided to take matters into my own hands. Though I wasn’t able to find the proper steaming vessel here, my improvisation using a rice cooker turned out pretty well.
This particular version gets its name from the combination of salted salmon and salmon roe on top. “Oyako” literally means “parent and child” in Japanese and is more commonly used to refer to oyako donburi, a rice bowl with chicken and chicken egg on top. In this case, it refers to the salmon and its roe.
Adding sake to the rice gives it a nice nutty aroma while steaming the salmon on top infuses the rice with some salmon flavor. You could of course omit the roe if that’s not your thing and you can top it with everything from unagi to chicken to beef.
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When someone mentions “Chinese food” thoughts of cheap, greasy, heat-burn inducing takeout food often comes to mind. Chinese cuisine is a case of “lost in translation” if I’ve ever seen one. Eileen Yin-Fei Lo has a whole section in her book Chinese Kitchen dedicated to telling the story of how dishes like General Tso’s Chicken and Chop Suey came to be and the original dishes they were based on. The changes were partly due to the availability of ingredients and partly due to the fact that many early Chinese immigrants were laborers, not chefs.
“Real” Chinese food can be elegant and refined and the James Beard Foundation decided to showcase Chinese cuisine in their annual gala and conference this year. The Dumplings and Dynasties Gala tonight will feature food from leading Chinese chef’s from both the US and China with dishes like “Tea-Smoked Duck Breast, Cold Lobster in Jelly, and Vegetable Marrow with Assorted Vegetables” and “Chilled Coconut Milk and Bird’s Nest Jelly in Icewine–Poached Pear, Egg White Tartlet” on the menu. The 2 day conference on Friday and Saturday feature panels, presentations and workshops highlighting the rich diversity of the food.
While I don’t have the cash these days to plunk down for the gala or conference, Foodbuzz got me into a preview event hosted at Chinatown Brasserie (one of my favourite places for dim sum in Manhattan). I know I’ve talked about this before (and at the risk of sounding salesy), one of the biggest perks of becoming a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher is that they’ll get you into food events in your area as press (i.e. free)! Below is a little photo tour of what I saw and tasted:-)
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It was cold and rainy in Manhattan yesterday and after a day spent wandering around the Chocolate Show and the Asian Contemporary Art Fair, I wanted something warm and fulfilling that wouldn’t take a lot of effort to make. Thoughts of Cassoulet and Feijoada both popped into my head but those aren’t the kind of things you start making at 5pm if you want to eat it before breakfast the next morning.
I picked up a ham hock, some Italian sausage and lacinato kale on the way home with some vague idea of an intensely flavorful stew I wanted to make. I had some duck stock in the fridge and a tub of demi glace that I figured I’d use to give it that extra oomph of a long-braised dish.
While I’m not sure of the exact origins of the term “peasant stew”, almost every country has a version and it typically involves adding random cuts of cheap meat to a pot with a starch (beans, potatoes, etc) and cooking it for a long time. While my addition of demi glace does make it a little fancier, it’s still a humble dish at heart and the best part is that it doesn’t require much effort. This whole thing came together with the use of a pot, a cutting board, a plate, a knife and a wooden spoon and after about 2 hours of unattended time on the stove, the meat was falling off the hock and it was ready to eat.
Whole Foods had some spring onions that looked like they were just plucked from the earth, so I roasted a few and placed them on top of the stew for a little color. As it turns out, they were incredibly sweet and flavourful, so it ended up complimenting the rich flavours of the stew nicely. As a whole the dish was lighter than Cassoulet or Feijoada but it had a similar intensity of flavour. The veggies and herbs helped offset the heaviness of the meat and overall the dish was surprisingly well balanced. With a hunk of multi-grain bread, it made for a great warming meal that’s now going on my winter rotation.
What’s your favourite stew for cold weather?
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Soon after the leaves fall and the weather cools, people tend to crave comfort. For some of us, comfort comes in the form of food, and Oden is a quintessential staple of Japanese comfort food.
In the winter months, street carts, ramen shops and izakayas (pubs) all over Japan start serving the simple warming stew. You can even get it in cans out of vending machines. In a way, oden is a bit like what corned beef and cabbage is to Irish Americans.
What’s your favourite comfort food?
While there are many regional variations, the one I grew up eating uses a light dashi broth with fishcake, egg, konyaku, tofu products and vegetables in it. My version in the photo is a bit odd because I didn’t have any daikon on hand and I substituted brussel sprouts instead. It was actually pretty good though and furthers my corned beef and cabbage analogy:-)
The ingredients are simmered together and are served with karashi (hot mustard). Like all stews, this one is best made in advance and given at least a day in the fridge for all the flavours to saturate into all the items that are in the broth.
Here’s a primer into various items I use grouped in order of when you should add them to the broth:
Group 1
- Daikon- These are the long white Japanese radishes, they are peeled, then sliced into thick rounds which come out soft and flavourful when stewed in oden.
- Kabocha- These Japanese pumpkins have a mottled green skin and dark orange interior and have a texture somewhere between butternut squash and sweet potato. Cut them into big wedges. If your kabocha is relatively thin, you may want to wait until the daikon is halfway done before adding it.
- Sato-Imo- These are Japanese taro roots and are much smaller than the type used in other asian cuisines (about the size of a baby potato and no bigger than a small potato). Peel them and leave them whole if they are small or cut them in half if they are a little bigger.
- Konyaku- This is one of my favourite things in oden, but may not be for everyone. It’s a hard jelly that’s made from the root of a plant. The texture is a bit hard to describe, but it’s a gelatinous substance that is vaguely crunchy –kind of like some mushrooms and jellyfish are. There’s a trick to give them a braided look which also helps them absorb more flavour. Cut it into 1/4″ thick slices then cut a slit vertically down the center leaving 1/4″ at the top and 1/4″ at the bottom intact. Then you take one end and stuff it through the hole you’ve cut int the center and pull it through to the other side. I know this sounds complicated, but take a look at the pics below
- Tofu- If you use plain tofu, you’ll want to make sure you’re using firm tofu, otherwise it will come apart while cooking.
- Ganmoudoki- I’m not entirely sure how these are made, but they’re little round cakes made of tofu and shredded vegetables that are deep fried. It has a slightly spongy texture, so it absorbs the broth nicely.
- Atsuage- This literally means “thick deep fried” and is thick cut firm tofu that’s been deep fried giving it a browned “shell” on the outside that helps keep the tofu from falling apart while simmering.
- Chikuwa- These cylindrical tubes are a form of fish cake.
- Satsuma-age- “age” is pronounced “ah-geh” and is another type of fish cake with veggies such as carrots, green beans and burdock in it.
- Other fishcakes- You can use pretty much any kind of fishcake you like or can find including kamaboko, imitation crab, fish balls (chinese), etc.
Group 2
- Soft boiled egg- Typically you put hard boiled eggs in and cook them along with everything else so it soaks up the flavours, but I hate overcooked egg yolk. I’ve found a good compromise is to soft boil the eggs then drop them in the soup after you’ve cooked all the other stuff and then leave it in the fridge overnight. After a day of soaking in the broth, the eggs will be perfectly flavoured and cooked.
- Hanpen- This is a unique fishcake in that it’s very light and spongy, quite literally like a cake. It’s very delicate though and if you cook it too long it will turn into mush. I like to put it in after the first cooking and before rewarming the oden.
- Kinchaku- It’s abura-age (thinly sliced deep fried tofu) stuffed with a small piece of mochi (rice cake) and tied into a little purse with kampyo (dried strips of gourd). These are great, because the abura-age absorbs the broth while the mochi inside gets all melty and soft. Thanks for the name Pakupaku.
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Making light, airy, evenly browned crêpes that are just a little crisp around the edges is no harder than making pancakes (I actually think is easier). Here are 5 tips to ensure things go smoothly.
5 tips for making perfect crêpes
- Refrigerate the batter for at least one hour. Gluten, a cross-linked chain of two proteins, forms when wheat flour and water are agitated. It’s a desirable reaction when you’re making things like bread, but is not so desirable in cakes, pie crusts and crêpes. Refrigerating the batter after it’s been mixed, “relaxes” the gluten and makes for light, airy crêpes.
- Use a heavy bottomed stainless steel pan. Your pan needs to heat evenly, so it’s important that it has a thick bottom that will achieve this. Also, I’ve found that non-stick pans don’t evenly brown the crêpes (leaves a weird mottled pattern), so I prefer using a pan without non-stick coating.
- Slowly heat the pan to the desired temp. If you try to heat it too quickly you’ll constantly be fiddling with the temperature knob because it will start burning or get too cool. On my gas stove, I put the pan on the large burner and have the heat set a smidge below medium, but you’ll have to figure out what works best for you. Also, make sure the pan is hot enough, otherwise your crêpe will stick to the pan.
- Over butter the first crêpe. By “over butter” I don’t mean deep fry, but you want to make sure you have enough butter in the pan to thinly cover the bottom and part of the sides. Usually I just unwrap one end of the stick and make a swirling motion around the pan (kinda like applying deodorant). Your first crêpe will be a bit crisp and buttery (not that that’s even a bad thing), but your following crêpes should come out perfect. You shouldn’t need to re-butter the pan for at least 5-6 crêpes and you’ll only need a quick swipe.
- Don’t flip it too early. Wait until the surface of your crêpe is no longer shiny and the edges are starting to brown before you try and flip your crêpe. If you flip it too early it will tear.
The recipe below will make about 12-16 crêpes depending on what size pan you use. Apples tend to have a subtle flavor so I like using a couple forms of apple to make sure it’s got plenty of flavor. If you don’t have Calvados (apple brandy) feel free to substitute for brandy.
for crêpe
1 C flour
1 1/2 C milk
2 eggs
pinch salt
1 Tbs sugar
1 tsp vanilla
Put everything in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Transfer to a bowl with a spout, cover and refrigerate for an hour. Following the instructions in the tips above, heat a pan and butter. Pour enough batter into the center of the pan to cover about 1/3 of its surface area then quickly pick it up and use a swirling motion to cover the rest of the pan.
Let this cook until the edges start turning brown and grab an edge with a flat spatula then use your fingers to lift the edge and get the rest of the spatula under the crêpe and flip it. Cook for about another 30 seconds or until you see some brown spots when you peak under the crêpe. Transfer to a plate and serve immediately, or you can stack them on top of each other and keep them in a warm oven.
for buttered apples
1/4 C apple juice
1/4 C butter (1/2 stick)
1/2 C sugar
1/2 apple cut into 1/8″ cubes
2 Tbs Calvados or brandy
1 Tbs lemon juice
Cook everything except the Calvados and lemon juice in a small sauce pan over medium low heat while you cook the crêpes (about 10-15 minutes). Whisk in the Calvados and lemon juice just before serving over your crêpes.
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