Japanetsy Noodle Bowl

Behold, the product of a spontaneous trip to Super-L Ranch Market (upon excitedly discovering that indeed, Phoenix has an Asian market), regular grocery day at Whole Foods, a limited budget, and little to no knowledge of Japanese cuisine. And my love of stupid names.

The creation of this bowl of food, like that of so many before it, was influenced by many delicious experiences. I had udon noodles some time ago at a friend's birthday dinner, and haven't been able to forget about how deliciously fat and slippery they were (I'm sorry, there's really no other way to say it). And again, eating at Green in Tempe - they have these bowls. With a bunch of stuff in them, and noodles. Only they're expensive, whereas my version is not. My Cafe Flora cookbook inspired me to roast tofu with yams (instead of deep frying it, like the tofu I've had at Green). And finally... miso. Everyone keeps talking about it and I didn't want to miss out. So I bought some.

Back to those udon noodles... I really wanted to make some like I had at Boom Noodle back in Seattle. I looked at Super-L but they only had two choices, and I couldn't read the label to know what exactly their deal was. (This is where taking Japanese instead of French, German, and Spanish would have come in handy.) I don't like being alienated from all knowledge about the food products I consume. So I tried Whole Foods, which in Seattle surely has a nice selection of udon noodles. I guess Phoenix doesn't, because I had two choices there too: one that was "organic" but made in China (I would have considered it if udon noodles were Chinese, but... well, probably not even then), and one that was not organic, and made with whole wheat and brown rice and made in Japan. I chose the Japanese, acknowledging sadly that a noodle which was that full of fiber would never cook up to be as fat or slippery as the udon noodles at Boom Noodle. Le sigh. At least they will contribute to the health of my bowels.

Did I mention I know nothing about Japanese food? I know udon noodles are Japanese. I know miso is Japanese. I know tofu is consumed in Japan. That's the extent of it. I don't know if they make funky bowls full of things there. I don't know if they eat cremini mushrooms, or Swiss chard, or cilantro, or yams. I guess it doesn't matter, as long as those things taste good with miso and bran-y udon noodles and tofu. Turns out they taste GREAT with those things. I win.


JAPANETSY NOODLE BOWL

medium yam, peeled and diced to about 1/2-inch
8-16 oz extra firm tofu, patted dry and diced to same size as yam
some cooking oil
ground ginger
freshly ground black pepper
red pepper flakes
pinch o' sea salt
few tbsp grated fresh ginger
1 tbsp tamari or shoyu
1 tsp mustard
1 1/2 tbsp shiromiso (white miso)
2-3 tbsp some kind of sweet jam (I used cloudberry from Ikea, because that's what I had) or honey, or a combination
3 tbsp lemon juice or rice vinegar (probably the latter, but I didn't have any)
5-6 tbsp oil
handful dry udon noodles
some more cooking oil
1/4 cup sliced cremini or button mushrooms
1/2 cup-1 cup chopped in season greens (like Swiss chard!)
2 cloves garlic, minced
fresh cilantro, for garnish

1. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees, stick a rack in the middle, yada yada. Chop up your yam and tofu and put them in a big bowl. Drizzle a few tablespoons of whatever cooking oil you have on hand onto them, add a bit of ground ginger (use your best guess as to how much), some red pepper flakes, black pepper, and a teeny weeny bit of salt. If you like getting your hands disgustingly oily, then mix it all up with your hands until every piece is evenly coated. If you prefer to keep your hands clean, find something else to stir it with. I haven't found anything nearly as effective, which is unfortunate because oily hands are kind of gross. Spread the tofu and yams out on a cookie sheet, and stick in the (preheated) oven to roast for 30-40 minutes.

2. Make your dressing in the meantime. Put the ginger, shoyu, mustard, miso, jam, and vinegar in a little bowl and whisk it up. Taste it. It should taste overwhelmingly salty and a little sweet. This is good, you'll use it sparingly. Whisk it quickly and drizzle in the oil until you feel it's the right thickness. Taste again, it should be a little milder.



3. Cook up your noodles, unless you were smart and got the fresh ones that are already fat and slippery. Put on some water and bring it to a boil, and add your noodles. Cook it according to what the package tells you. I'm pretty sure my whole wheat, brown rice noodles are a cooking anomaly.



4. Take out your roasting yams/tofu, if they're ready (if a fork goes into a yam easily, they're done), and set them aside.



5. Heat up some oil in a pan, pretty hot. Don't let it smoke, though, we've been over that. Actually, we haven't. Don't let your oil smoke, it becomes carcinogenic. On your bottle of cooking oil, it may list the "smoke point" - it's the maximum temperature to which an oil may be heated before it starts turning to smoke. Don't go past that. Anyway, when your oil is hot (you can feel the heat from several inches away), add your mushrooms in a layer. This is too much oil:



I had to pour some out. When the mushrooms look like this:



you can add your garlic and greens. Keep stirring, don't let the garlic burn. It will brown, this is unavoidable. Turn down your heat. When everything shrinks nicely but doesn't wilt to a pulp, take it off the heat.



6. Toss some noodles, some yams/tofu, green mixture, and no more than a tablespoon or two of dressing into your serving bowl until it's coated and flavored to your liking. Don't overdress it, or it will be way too salty. Top it with a little cilantro if you wish. Bon appetit. *insert Japanese translation here*

I might change a few things about this. I might marinate the tofu in some dressing for a half hour before roasting it. I might get real udon noodles... stick in some green onions at the end... and eliminate the mustard/shoyu from the dressing and use rice vinegar instead of lemon juice. But I still think it worked. Let me know if you try it.

Sheepie's Pie

A lot has happened this year. Get a job: check. Move to a new state: check. Convert from FTP uploading with Google Blogger to custom domain blogging: shudder, and check. (FYI, Google, it didn't have to be that hard, and you officially suck at writing instructions. But that's not important.)

I came here today to do something I haven't done in a long time: write about something I made. In MY OWN APARTMENT. (This is where you smile indulgently.)

This is the dish that is usually called either "shepherd's pie" or "cottage pie," which, according to Wikipedia, is made with ground beef or lamb as a means to use up leftover meat. The catch being, in my case, that I don't eat meat and therefore didn't need to use it up in anything. But shepherd's pie is more than meat, right? It's like, vegetables and potatoes and stuff. So instead of making a pie out of what a shepherd would eat (a bunch of dead lambs), I am making a pie out of what a wee sheepie might eat (a bunch of dead plants). Get it? Sheepie's pie? It wasn't actually my idea.

As a non-fan of mock meat, I wanted to use something that could substitute and yet exists as a food in its own right. Enter tempeh. Lovely, lumpy tempeh. It's a fermented soybean product, originating in Indonesia. It uses the whole soybean and, because it's cultured, is pre-digested for you by a bunch of bacteria, so it's easy on the gut. And full of protein (by the way, don't believe everything you read about soy. It's not a miracle food, and it's not giving you cancer - at least, not in a form like tempeh).

Thank you once more, Veganomicon, for instructing me on one of the many awesome ways to insert flavor into tempeh.


SHEEPIE'S PIE

some red potatoes (1 lb? 2 lb?)
8 oz tempeh
~3 tbsp soy sauce
1 cup water
garlic
buttermilk
butter
salt
pepper
a few handfuls of fresh herbs (rosemary, thyme, sage, and/or oregano)
olive oil
onion
mushrooms (1/3 or 1/2 lb)
more herbs
more garlic
~1 cup walnuts or pecans
~1 1/2 - 2 cups fresh or frozen peas, corn kernels, and/or diced steamed carrots, mixed together
some kind of hard/old cheese, like parmesan or asiago or romano

1. Bring a bunch of water in a pot to a boil, and salt it liberally (1 tbsp per half gallon). Cut your (clean) potatoes into chunks. I don't care how big they are, but make them relatively the same size. Toss them into the boiling water, and boil them for 15-20 minutes, depending on how big the chunks are. When a fork glides right into a potato chunk in the deepest part, with no uncomfortable crunch or excess starchiness, they're done and you can drain them.

2. While the potatoes are boiling away, crumble your tempeh up into little bits, and stick it in a saucepan with the soy sauce and water. The tempeh should be almost covered.

Cover it with a lid and boil for 10 minutes, then take off the lid and turn down the heat, and cook off the rest of the liquid. Stir it every so often to make sure it's not welding to the bottom of the pan. The tempeh should look all brown and lovely. When the liquid is gone, take the tempeh off the heat and set it aside for later.




3. Heat up the oven to 375 F and make sure the oven rack is in the middle, or slightly below it.

4. Take those potatoes, all drained of water... and mash them. Mash them up good, skins and everything, inside your big pot. Add a couple of cloves of pressed/minced garlic while you're mashing (the heat of the potatoes will semi-cook the garlic). Also add a bit of fresh herbs (cut them up first, though).



This is when it's kind of fun. Add a bunch of buttermilk (maybe a cup? depends on how many potatoes you had... just until it looks nice and creamy), some butter (a few tablespoons, maybe half a stick), and some pepper, and mix it 'til the butter melts. It should look AMAZING. If it's a little dry, add some more butter and buttermilk. Don't be shy with the high-fat dairy products. You want it to be delicious, right? And you're only going to be having a small amount in a serving anyway. Taste for seasoning and add salt, pepper, butter, or herbs as needed.




5. Sautee up some onions in oil. You should know how to do this. Use maybe a cup or a little less of medium-diced onions.



Sautee them until translucent and starting to brown.




6. While the onions are cooking, roughly chop up some mushrooms. I forgot to clean mine before cutting them, so I just soaked them in some water after cutting them up, strained them in my salad spinner, and spread them out on a cloth napkin to dry. I guess you're not really supposed to "wash" mushrooms in water, but I don't think it matters that much. They get clean.




7. When the onions look ready, dump in the mushrooms. And press a few more cloves of garlic in with them. And add some more chopped herbs, and grind in some pepper.



Cook it all together until the mushrooms get nice and soft and dark and cooked-looking.




8. While it's cooking, chop your nuts finely. You can use a nut grinder if you want, just don't make them into a flour or a paste or anything.




9. Add the tempeh and the nuts to the onion/mushroom mix when it's ready, and stir it up and take it off the heat. Taste it and add pepper if needed. I doubt you'll need salt, but add some if you do.




10. Take a nice glass baking dish, say, 9x13 or something. I don't actually know the dimensions of mine, but it was a little small. It doesn't really matter, actually. Dump all your tempeh, mushrooms, etc. into the dish and spread it around so it's even. On top of it, sprinkle your mixed vegetables. I used frozen because it was convenient, and nothing is ever in season in Arizona except cactus and tomatoes.




11. Put a few piles of your mashed potatoes on top of the mixed vegetables. It should be pretty thick, so it might be hard to spread. Do the best you can. I find that flattening the piles works pretty well.



You can keep adding more until you have enough to cover, and however much extra you might want.




12. Grate on some cheese. I used Pecorino Romano for flavor along with a little Monterey Jack for meltiness. You can use anything you want, except maybe gorgonzola, which would conflict with the soy sauce in the tempeh and make the whole thing taste moldy. You really would be unhappy with the end result.




13. Stick it in the oven, and keep it there for 45 minutes or so. Take it out when it's making noise (kind of a crispy gurgling sound) and looks lightly browned. Then you can eat it, but be sure you don't burn your mouth on the potatoes, because they'll be quite hot.

If I could revise this recipe, I'd use a mushroom stock and some red wine to simmer the tempeh in, instead of soy sauce. I liked it, but not enough. Don't get me wrong, though, this was pretty delicious.

By the way, I sometimes take pictures of my food at odd angles. It's generally because I'm trying to avoid casting a shadow on my food with my camera, and it's difficult to position with overhead artificial light. Plus, it looks kind of cute.

Rock Cod and Heart of Palm Salad

Who doesn't think of hearts of palm when they think of Alaskan rock cod??

Obviously everyone but me. Actually, I just had a bunch of things left over, in the cupboard, whatever, and sort of threw together a meal. Simple and fast and healthy and tasty. Well, relatively healthy. Butter's wholesome, right?

This is my favorite way to cook cod/rockfish/snapper (probably because it's really the only way I know how. hmm). I always make a dry rub of some sort, put it on the fish, and then cook it slowly in a pan with some butter or olive oil. Squeeze a bittie lemon at the end, and voila! Pretty easy.

Dry spice rubs are incredibly easy to make, and if you have a dozen or so herbs and spices in your possession you can do just fine. Improvise. I often like to use smoked paprika as a base, but I don't always have some. Dried thyme (not powdered) is one of my favorite components... I usually have about 3 or 4 herbs/spices, and then nearly match their volume with sea salt, and some black pepper. You can use cumin-oregano-chipotle, or thyme-coriander-mustard-pinch o' allspice, or oregano-thyme-smoked paprika-red pepper flake, or really whatever you think would go well together. "Sweet" spices like allspice should generally be used in very small quantities, hot spices like cayenne or chipotle in moderate quantities, and dried herbs like oregano and thyme in large quantities. If you want it to be super duper tasty, use fresh thyme in place of dried. It just occurred to me that I have a pot of fresh thyme sitting out on the deck, and that some of it is still perfectly usable, and I used dried. Oh poo. Such is life... More for a later date, then.

As for the salad, it really had no inspiration. I made an Italiany-type "vinaigrette," and I'm not sure if I can call it that because it contains no vinegar, only lemon juice. What's that? My linguistic ignorance is showing?

Oh yeah, I made the vinaigrette for the hearts of palm that I wanted to eat, because hello, hearts of palm... vinaigrette... duh. And then I had this arame seaweed that I rehydrated and put in there because it was interesting and nutritionally valuable, and leftover cooked emmer farro, and some celery for crunch. It would have been nice over a leaf of romaine, or with some chopped up parsley in it, but I didn't have any romaine, or parsley. I got kalamata olives out with the intention of using them too, but as the salad came together, I realized I didn't really want them there. Maybe I'll try them in a bit of it tomorrow for leftovers.

Oh. And I thought I would mention this, because it's not necessarily an obvious point. For salad dressings, any Italian sauces, or un-sauteed garnish of food requiring olive oil, extra virgin olive oil is typically used. The difference between extra virgin and regular olive oil is that the former is the most unrefined form of olive oil available. Virgin olive oil has not been chemically treated during production, and extra virgin olive oil is "extra" because it is selected specifically for flavor. Smell a sample of regular olive oil and one of extra virgin olive oil and you will detect a difference, and it's not subtle. The taste of a good extra virgin olive oil is really worth a few extra $$ per bottle, and it really is crucial in a raw application such as a dressing. If you still really don't care about the flavor, just go with vegetable oil, because it tastes more or less the same as regular olive oil, at a much lower price. FYI, the reason olive oil is chemically treated is to significantly lengthen its shelf life, preventing early rancidity (to which extra virgin is prone if stored a long time) and increase its smoke point (the temperature at which heated oil begins to smoke and create carcinogenic free radicals).


HEART OF PALM SALAD

2 tbsp lemon juice
1 clove garlic, pressed
big ol' pinch of dried oregano (not powdered)
big ol' pinch of thyme (not powdered if dried, and minced if fresh)
giant ol' pinch of salt
a few generous grindings of black pepper
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 14-15 oz can hearts of palm, drained and cut into 3/4-inch pieces
3 tbsp dried arame seaweed, rehydrated in a bowl of water for 15 minutes and chopped a bit
1 rib celery, cut into 1/8-inch slices
1 cup cooked brown rice, emmer farro, or spelt or wheat or rye berries

1. In a medium serving bowl, whisk up the lemon juice, garlic, dried thyme and oregano, salt, and pepper. If you don't have a garlic press, you can finely mince the garlic, but get it as tiny as possible and smash it a little before or after chopping it. Garlic flavor is in the garlic juice! If you have a fresh lemon you can squeeze for the juice, then fabulous. But as I usually need more juice than is economically feasible to get from a bunch of lemons... I do go for the bottled stuff. If you do that, make sure it's fresh (not old), and not from concentrate. I like the Lakewood brand, which uses Florida lemons. It seems to have the best flavor.

2. While whisking, slowly drizzle in the olive oil and keep whisking until it's all mixed up. It's fine if it separates a little. It should be pale and slightly opaque.



3. Dump all the other ingredients in the bowl with the dressing. Mix it up. Mmmm.

ROCK COD

1 rock cod, true cod, rockfish, or snapper fillet, about 1/3 - 1/2 pound
pinch o' dried or fresh thyme (not powdered)
pinch o' dried oregano (not powdered)
pinch o' mustard powder
pinch o' paprika
big huge pinch o' sea salt
freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp buttah
lemon wedge

1. So you have your fish fillet. Rinse it a bit, in case it's fishy, which it isn't, because you bought it the same day it was packed. But rinse it just to be safe, and pat it dry on a paper-towel-lined plate. Run your fingers along the fillet lengthwise, both directions, both sides, to feel for bones. If you feel some (they are like little hard nubbins), take some kitchen tweezers/pliers/heck-even-shears and pull them out (pull in the same direction as the bone). Nobody likes finding bones in their fish.

2. Get your dry rub all ready. Put the thyme, oregano, mustard, paprika, salt, and pepper all together in a wee bowl and mix it up until it looks pretty much... mixed. That was pretty easy.

3. Sprinkle the dry rub all over the fish, on both sides, and pat it in. You can even rub it in, because, after all, you didn't make a rub so you could sprinkle.



4. Heat up your butter in a stainless skillet, 10 inches is fine, over medium-low heat. You can probably do this earlier, like before you make the rub, but you don't want to risk the butter burning before you're ready for it. Don't be tempted to turn up the heat too much, because the fish will not be happy. This is a slow fish.



5. When the butter starts to brown, lay your fillet down in the pan. Don't worry if the skinny bit comes up the side a little, the fillet shrinks some and it's in there long enough to cook through. When you put the fish in, the pan should hush you a little. Not a lot, as in "SHHHHHH! This is a library!" but instead like, "shhhhh... go to sleep..." Take its advice and turn the heat down to low-ish.



6. When the fish just begins to flake and has the palest of browns on the underside (a 3 minutes, maybe), turn it over. Don't be sad if your fillet turns into several fillets at this point. Nobody really cares that much.





7. You will know when the fish is done. It starts to fall apart. If you poke it, it feels tender and kind of soft. Looking at a cross-section of a flake, it's completely opaque.



8. Take the pan off the heat and tent some foil over it, and let the fish rest for 5 minutes or so. I used this time to make my heart of palm salad, but my fish was only kind of warm when I ate it. Which was fine with me, but maybe you like getting your tongue burnt. I don't judge.

9. Put it on a plate with the yummy juice that released into the pan, the browned butter solids and whatever else is in the pan. Squeeze some lemon onto it. The leftover buttery fish juice is great if you have some french bread to dip into it, or if you're a plate-licker.





The best part is, because you didn't smoke up the house by cooking butter over high heat, nothing burnt onto your stainless pan and it's super-easy to clean.

PROS: each dish delicious in its own right. Relatively healthful, with lots of fun textures. Easy cleanup.
CONS: the dishes didn't work together as I'd hoped. The lemon on both of them competed with each other and made me wish I'd had the two on separate occasions.