Tag Archive for 'steamed'

Steamed Curry Fish Cakes in Cucumber Water

Published
by
marc
on July 12, 2008
in Appetizer, Seafood, Southeast and Summer
. 9 Comments

This is another one of those weird ideas that came to me in a day dream about food. When I get these ideas I send them to myself by email so I don’t forget them, then when I have a bit of time (or the right ingredients) I can give it a go. It’s been so long since I thought of this I can’t really remember where I was or what I was thinking, but this is a reinterpretation of the Thai fishcake dish Tod Mun Pla.

Tod Mun is traditionally a fried golden brown fishcake that’s loaded with spicy red curry and fragrant kaffir lime leaves. Inside they are soft and juicy with with crunchy bits of Chinese long bean and they’re usually served with a sweet and tart sauce that has chopped cucumbers and red onions in it.

While I love the original, I wanted to experiment with something lighter and more fluffy, floating in a sea of cool cucumber water and topped with a tart crispy red onion salad. To achieve this, I added baking powder to the fish cake to give it some fluff and steamed it instead of pan frying for a lighter taste. The cucumber water is essentially strained cucumber juice that would make a wonderfully refreshing cold soup on it’s own and the thai chili sauce and onion salad make for sweet and tart accents that round out the dish nicely.

I reserved the pulp from making the cucumber water and mixed it with some plain yogurt to make a nice cooling dip for Lamb and Veggie Kebabs.

Continue for full recipe

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Choi sum goma-ae (chinese greens with sesame sauce)

Published
by
marc
on May 6, 2008
in Japanese, Vegan, Vegetable and Vegetarian
. 9 Comments

After the meat bomb the past 2 nights, I was feeling a need for some cleansing today and decided to do a nice light Japanese veggie (well almost) dinner. By the time I got home from work, I was starving, so I cut up some lebanese cucumbers into bite size sticks and wrapped them in ramp kimchi. I figured it’s not really worthy of its own post, but they were tasty little things.

For dinner, I steamed up some choi sum (chinese greens) and made one of my favourite accompaniments for any steamed greens: goma-ae (pronounced go-ma-ah-ay). It’s like a dressing without the oil or vinegar and has a deep earthy flavor from the ground sesame seeds and dashi. I like to brighten it up a little with just a spash of yuzu juice. Not enough to make it tangy, but enough to give it that unmistakably sunny flavor of yuzu. If you can’t find yuzu, you can use a little lemon or lime zest instead.

I also made a nasu dengaku (grilled eggplant with sweet miso paste), but you’ll have to stay tuned for my next post for that.

Totally unrelated, but I got to work this morning, turned on my laptop and saw the news headline “21,000 Killed in Myanmar”, a storm that happened somewhere on the other side of the world (that last I heard had tragically taken 200 lives), suddenly got orders of magnitude more real. If you feel the need to help out in some way, I found a few organizations collecting money for relief efforts.

Global Giving is a cool organization that uses the power of the web to collect small donations from lots of people then figures out the most effective way to get it in the hands of the people doing the relief work (cutting out some of the administrative fat of giving to a bigger organizations where a chunk of your donation doesn’t actually go to the relief efforts). They also give you updates on what your money is doing which I thought is pretty cool.

If you’re weary about giving to a small unknown organization, AmeriCares International has been around for 25 years and actually has volunteers on the ground in Myanmar.

1/2 bunch of choi sum

2 Tbs toasted sesame seeds ground with a mortar and pestle
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
2 Tbs dashi
splash of yuzu juice

Steam or boil the choi sum until bright green (about 1-2 minutes). Rinse under cold water and squeeze out any excess water.

While you could cheat and use instant dashi since you only need a little, I was making something else so I made my dashi with niboshi (dried baby sardines) and shitake mushrooms. If you want to make a veggie dashi, use extra shitake with some onions.

For the sauce, just mix the last 5 ingredients together and pour over the steamed veggies.

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Banana peel steamed pork and rice

Published
by
admin
on April 25, 2008
in Dinner, Experimental and Pork
. 21 Comments

Last week, I was sitting in a product meeting at work. Our CTO was eating a banana and as he set the peel down on the table it struck me that it would make the perfect vessel to hold food. Since then I’ve been mulling over all the different ways one could cook food in a piece of the fruit that’s come to symbolize rubbish.

I began to fantasize about fork tender hunks for moist pork surrounded by rice infused with the flavors of banana and the savory pork. Over the following week I decided that a Cuban mojo would make a fine marinade (although I’d considered using a tamarind based marinade).

My biggest concern was that the astringent taste of the peel would ruin the contents. Upon doing some research I found that banana peels are used in some regions of India to make chutney. I also learned that there are some nasty pesticides used on bananas so I decided it would be best to use organic bananas. Beyond that I found nary a reference to cooking with banana peels.

My first inclination was to roast them at a low temperature, but after thinking about it for a bit, I realized that the dry heat would make it take a lot longer to make the meat tender. I was also thinking that it could potentially render the rice inedible. In the end, I decided to steam the bundles.

As with most things one fantasizes about for days on end, this didn’t quite live up to the high expectations I had, but that’s not to say it wasn’t good. As expected, it had a fairly strong banana flavor, so if you don’t like bananas, this might not be for you. The meat came out incredibly moist and tender and the rice was cooked perfectly, soaking up the flavors of the peel along with the juices from the pork.

The next time I do this, I’m going to try serving it with a salsa… maybe a mango coconut celery salsa.

      

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Steamed and salt cured uni

Published
by
marc
on March 23, 2008
in Appetizer and Japanese
. 0 Comments

Steamed and salt cured uni

So sea urchin might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I made this the other day and it makes for a simple appetizer.

Uni’s creamy, uniformly rich texture makes it a bit like the foie gras of the sea (minus the animal rights abuses). I like to give it two different treatments to add a bit of contrast. Half of it is steamed in mirin (sweet japanese cooking wine) while the other is cured between pieces of kelp with sea salt. The resulting sweet/briny, firm/soft, hot/cold juxtapositions add some much needed contrast to this tasty morsel.

I usually opt of the cheaper Uni for this preparation since size and color uniformity is less important (just make sure it’s fresh).

1 flat of Uni
2 pieces of rehydrated dashi kombu (kelp used to make stock)
Sea salt of good quality (like Fleur de Sel)

Fold a paper towel in half twice and lay a piece of konbu on top. Sprinkle an even layer of salt down on the kelp and lay each piece of uni on top in a single layer until you’ve gotten half way through the uni, or you’re out of space. Sprinkle another even layer of salt on top of the uni and cover with another piece of kelp and another folded paper towel. Repeat with more kelp and salt if you have more uni, otherwise put it in the fridge to cure overnight.

When you’re ready to serve, get your steamer ready to steam. Put half the uni in a ramekin, or other shallow heat-proof dish and add enough mirin to generously coat each piece. Put it into the steamer for about 5-10 minutes or until the alcohol has burned off and the uni is cooked.

When it’s done, take the cured uni out of the fridge and gently mix with the steamed uni. Serve a small amount to each person with a glass of cold sake.

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