Saffron and Lemons

Nazuktan: Turkish eggplant appetizer with mint & almonds

2012-01-19T13:04:00.000+09:00

When I was a little girl, we used to sing a little ditty about going round the mulberry bush. I had no idea what a mulberry was, but at least I knew it grew on a bush! ...Or so I thought.

The first time I saw an actual mulberry was in Shiraz, Iran--the city of roses and poetry. Two giants of classical Persian poetry are buried there, and the mulberries were growing in the mausoleum of one, Hafez. And they weren't growing on a bush, either. Our dear hostess reached up an plucked what looked like very long blackberries from a tree and offered them up to an amazed Young Man and I. I mean, is it even okay to DO that in a sacred burial place??! It turns out that it is, and the three of us enjoyed a few sweet and sour berries, while other visitors sat on the steps of the monument reading poetry in quiet tones or milled about enjoying the gardens round about.

The next time I saw mulberries was at the local park in my parents' town to the west of Melbourne. Imagine my surprise at the free bounty to be found just across the way from the jungle gym! It was not long before some Turkish picnickers joined us and, between us, we just about stripped the poor saplings of fruit. Our Turkish friends know a good thing when they see it (g).

I was not surprised, then, to find dut pekmezi (mulberry molasses) on an expedition to procure supplies from the Turkish-run Middle-Eastern superstore Basfoods in the Melbourne suburb of Brunswick. I thought the mulberry tartness would make this pekmez a fine substitute for the sometimes over-sweet notes of regular (grape) pekmez in this lovely blackened eggplant dip from Ghillie Basan's Classic Turkish Cookery. As it turns out, mulberry pekmez is quite sweet, too, so a little more lemon juice was required.

Nazuktan: Turkish eggplant appetizer with mint & almonds

4-5 Asian or 2 regular eggplants
juice of 1/2 lemon (or to taste)
2-3 cloves garlic, crushed with salt
1 tbsp pekmez
2-3 tbsp roasted almonds, roughly chopped
small bunch fresh mint (approx 20 g), roughly chopped
salt and fresh ground black pepper

To garnish
few whole roasted almonds
fresh mint leaves

1 Place the eggplants under a hot grill or hold them directly over a high gas flame, turning them until the skin blackens and they become very soft. Slit them open and scoop out the flesh.

2 Chop the flesh to a pulp and put it in a bowl. Add the other ingredients, except the pekmez, and mix well. Season to taste.

3 Place in a bowl and drizzle with the pekmez. Garnish with the roasted almonds and mint leaves and serve with flatbread.

Enjoy!

Persian cooking class: Shami kebab, jewelled rice, beet salad & quince preserves

2011-01-17T15:26:00.012+09:00

Christmas was fast approaching, so our dear Persian Table cooking class hosts, Reza and Tomoko-san, pulled out all the stops for a culinary red-fest. On the menu were donut-shaped spiced meat patties with grilled cherry tomatoes; a salad of beets, black olives and mint, the piece de resistance--jewelled rice--a dish whose reputation had grown to epic proportions in my mind; and for dessert, two varieties of quince preserves with ice cream.

To a Westerner, the word kebab often connotes marinated meats cooked on skewers or perhaps even veggies or fruit on a stick. But that is not the whole story (or even the actual story in the case of skewered fruit!). Across the Middle East, kebab can mean many things, the only common denominator being meat. Take Turkey, for instance. Kebab can be meat cooked just about any way, from sis (shish) kebab to the vertical spit roasted doner kebab and Iskendar kebab to testi kebab, a meat and veggie casserole baked in a clay pot. What I didn't know that the same ambiguity also reigns in Iran, and that extends even up to hamburger-like patties!

There are plenty of recipes for Shami (Syrian) kebabs in Googleland, and though the shape and size seems to vary from chef to chef and country to country, the common elements seem to be meat and some form of legume, often chickpeas, as in Reza's use of besan (gram or chickpea) flour. His Persian take on the dish is ring-shaped burgers well herbed and spiced with turmeric, parsley, tarragon, ginger, garlic and chilli. The chickpea flour and a little baking powder give the patties an airy texture.

The beet salad featured chunks of simmered beetroot with black olives in a garlic-lemon dressing, accented by fresh mint. A very unusual combination. Beets were previously not often seen in Japan, but they are becoming more readily available, now that they have been elevated to "superfood" status!

Jewelled rice is one of the pearls of Persian cooking. In photos, it always looks spectacular, a spread of basmati crowned with saffron-tinted rice, barberry rubies, pistachio emeralds and golden threads of orange zest. Reza's recipe adds almonds and pumpkin seeds for crunch, a collar of spiced onion squares, and a seductive sprinkling of rose petal powder, making the dish truly regal.

I was so impressed with the kebab and rice together, I decided on the spot to make this for my friends in Australia over Christmas/New Year, and smuggled some Iranian saffron into the country for that very purpose (g).

Quince is a quaint fruit often overlooked in the West, but prized in Japan and China for its throat soothing properties (of all things!). Reza and Tomoko-san had prepared two kinds of quince preserves, using two varieties of the fruit, which they served with ice-cream.

Thanks to one of our classmates who looked it up on her mobile phone, we now know that the Chinese variety of quince ("karin" in Japanese) has a smooth skin, whereas the central Asian variety (marmelo or "Western karin" in Japanese) has a bit of a fuzz. When prepared the same way, the flavour and texture of the two were actually quite different. Who knew there was so much going on in the world of quinces?!

Spicy chicken tagine with apricots, rosemary and ginger

2011-01-17T13:21:00.009+09:00

I love nothing better than pottering about the kitchen on Sunday afternoons cooking up a storm without having to keep one eye on the clock the entire time. Unfortunately, time wasn't on my side this Sunday night, but I was in luck, as this dish was ready in around half an hour--thanks to my trusty pressure cooker!

It's been a while since we've had Moroccan, and I really don't know why. This dish from Ghillie Basan's Tagines & Couscous: Delicious Recipes for Moroccan One-Pot Cooking ticks all the right boxes for me: sassy fresh ginger right in the fore; tart, fruity apricots taking up the rear; flavourful herbs and a slight chilli bite. It all adds up to a bold and lively dinner ready in almost no time.

This was the first Moroccan recipe I'd come across with rosemary as an ingredient, so I wondered if it was authentic. The jury is still out on that one--I've seen Moroccan sources say a very firm non to that, and others that say it is used in particular dishes. Perhaps it's a regional thing? One criticism I have of ethnic cuisine cookbooks written by by non-locals is that they often don't include the local-language name of the dish. Unfortunately, Tagines & Couscous falls into this category, so there is no way to check with other recipes for the same dish.

But that is a minor niggle, really. This tagine is truly superb and, authentic or otherwise, I will certainly not hold back with the rosemary next time! I used 1 tsp of freeze-dried rosemary, as I couldn't get fresh, but this dish could certainly stand up to more. I think 3 tsp would do the trick. I might also try grinding the ginger to a pulp with a Japanese oroshigane next time round for a different texture.

I've adjusted the original recipe for use in a pressure cooker. If using a tagine/tajine or regular pot, the the cooking time in the original recipe is 35-40 minutes, covered, at a gentle simmer.

Spicy chicken tagine with apricots, rosemary and ginger

2 tbsp olive oil plus a knob of butter
1 onion, finely chopped
3 tsp freeze-dried rosemary, 1 tsp chopped finely, the other 2 left whole
40 g fresh ginger, peeled and finely chopped or grated
1/2 hot red chilli, deseeded and chopped finely (or to taste)
1-2 cinnamon sticks
4 chicken thighs
175 g whole dried apricots
1-2 tbsp honey
400 g tin plum tomatoes in juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper
leaves from a small bunch of fresh basil

Serves 4

1 Heat the oil and butter in a medium sized pressure cooker. Add the onion, chopped rosemary, ginger and chilli and saute until the onion begins to soften.

2 Stir in the remaining rosemary and the cinnamon sticks. Season the chicken thighs with salt and pepper and add to the pot. Brown on both sides. Throw in the apricots and honey, then stir in the plum tomatoes and their juice. (Add a little water if necessary to ensure there is enough liquid to cover the base of the pressure cooker and submerge the apricots.) Seal the pressure cooker and bring to pressure. Turn down heat and cook under low pressure for 5-7 min, or until the chicken is done.

3 Adjust the seasoning. Shred the larger basil leaves and leave the small ones whole. Sprinkle over the chicken and serve with flat bread or couscous.

Enjoy!

Persian cooking class: Fig salad, mini onions with prawns and tamarind, giant rice meatballs, ferni milk pudding

2010-10-19T15:01:00.018+09:00

The last session of the current series of Persian cooking classes was to be in August, but was postponed until late September, as our dear instructors Reza and and his lovely wife Tomoko-san had a series of exhibitions of their artwork on around that time. In the intervening month, summer gave way to autumn and the planned watermelon salad starter made way for a more seasonal fig salad.

Lettuce leaves were tossed gently first with olive oil and then with a zesty dressing of Persian lime juice, yogurt, mayonnaise and honey. Reza has such a delicate hand when it comes to tossing salads, and my classmates and I commented on his precision and artistry. This simple salad was then garnished with quartered ripe figs, roughly broken crackers and lightly toasted black mustard seeds. It was a lovely starter, but would also be a nice weekend lunch dish.

This was followed by a very exciting and exotic dish of miniature onions and prawns in a tamarind sauce. The prawns were marinated in fresh ginger and garlic (unusual in Persian cuisine), coriander leaves and a little black pepper and cayenne pepper for the little kick characteristic of cooking of the Persian Gulf area. The mini onions were fried in olive oil with a dried chilli and then simmered with tamarind water, before the marinated prawns were added at the end of the cooking time. I loved this dish but, as the tartness fiend I am, would maybe double up the tamarind when I make it myself.

Next up was kufte berenj, or rice meatballs in a tomato sauce. Tennis ball sized, these are very impressive on the plate, but are also a complete meal in themselves, with rice, beans and a cube of cheese tucked into their orbs. Spiced with saffron, turmeric and dill, and topped with a mix of sour cream and yogurt (in place of liquid whey kashk, perhaps?) these are certainly not your average meatballs.

By this point we were all feeling quite sated, but there was still more to come! Ferni is the Persian take on that popular Middle Eastern dessert standby of rice pudding. Made with ground rice and milk, and scented with rose water, this pudding is usually served chilled. It's a very different beast from the British rice pudding of my childhood.

As usual, Reza and Tomoko-san had a little gift for everyone who participated in the class. This time it was a little atomizer of rose water.

Although it was the last session of this round of lessons, I'm really looking forward to the next invitation to Reza and Tomoko's "Persian Dining Table". It is clear that these lessons are a labour of love for the two, and their warmth and generosity make these lessons very different from those at other schools. Then again, the combination of Persian and Japanese hospitality was always going to be hard to beat!

Reza and Tomoko in action in the homey studio kitchen

Persian cooking class: Kashk-e bademjan, gheliye mahi, chelo and saffron-scented almond brittle

2010-07-20T12:54:00.015+09:00

This month's Persian cooking class was another beauty! The theme was the food of the Persian Gulf (Khalij-e Fars). Unlike the food of other parts of Iran, the food of the Gulf area is spicy, with detectable Indian and Arab influences. Our instructor, Reza Rahbar, is from this part of Iran, and I was super-excited to take this class for a couple of reasons: 1. The food of this area is not so well known, even to this avid Persian cookbook collector, and 2. we were going to make the absolutely mouth-watering stew of fish with herbs, chillies and tamarind (yes, all in one dish!!) that Reza demonstrated on NHK's Asia Crossroads program back in April. Also on the menu were kashk-e bademjan, a starter of fried eggplants topped with a yogurt and feta sauce; chelo steamed rice and sahan asali, an almond brittle perfumed with saffron.

I arrived early and, after having rosewater poured into my palm to refresh my face and hands, enjoyed a nice chat with Reza and his charming wife, who keeps the dialogue going during our lessons when Reza is busy at the stove. A photographer and designer in her own right, she designed the recipe sheet for this month's lesson, and was kind enough to say that my not-so-secret love of the colour orange was an inspiration for the design!

The eggplant starter was a bit of a revelation. There are many eggplant dips in the canon of Middle Eastern cookery, but here was one where the eggplants were pan-fried in oil, rather than grilled over a direct flame. You don't get the smokiness of, say, a mutabbal (baba gnanouj), but with the garlicky-dairy topping, drizzle of hot olive oil and a garish of mint, you certainly don't miss it. The kashk of the recipe name refers to a salty paste of whey, which is a bit of an acquired taste. It's not so easy to get here in Japan, and may not be to the taste of a most Japanese, so creating a similar flavour profile with yogurt and feta cheese was a good option. (Also helpful for those without a Persian grocer's nearby).

I was intrigued by the name of the fish dish, "ghalieh mahi". Mahi is fish in Persian, but what about ghalieh? I asked my dear Iranian friend Hw, who hails from the mountains in the north of Iran. He'd never heard of the word, so I flipped around my Persian-English dictionary till I came up with "qalieh," which was defined as "dish like a fricassee" (don't you hate it when a bilingual dictionary defines a word with another from a third language!). Stew, in other words. Later, I read in my latest Persian cookbook acquisition, A Treasury of Persian Cuisine, that Persian stews were called gholyeh for several centuries under the Arab influence, but the indigenous term, khoresh has once again become the standard term used in most parts of the country, "except for those nearer to the Persian Gulf..." I am now pretty sure that ghalieh, qalieh and gholyeh, are variant spellings of the same word, which translates as stew in English.

If you've had Iranian food before, you will know that there are one or two dishes that are so chock-full of fresh and dried herbs that they take on a worrying dark green tinge. I'm here to tell you that should certainly try any dish like that that you come across, as the odds are that it will be one of Iran's most fabulous dishes, like this one!

Reza's Ghelieh mahi was brimming with fresh coriander and parsley and dried fenugreek leaves. You are not likely to come across fresh fenugreek leaves just anywhere, but it's good to know that Persian and Indian grocers usually have the dried. Ask for shanbalileh if you're getting it from a Persian grocers or kasoori methi from an Indian one. The leaves need to be soaked in water for 10 min, then stir-fried for another 5. To me this seems to defeat the purpose of the soaking, but I am assured that this step does make a difference to the taste in the end.

Although there are many, many fabulous rice dishes in the Persian kitchen, Reza made plain steamed chelo to serve with the ghelieh mahi, which has enough flavour going on not to need a fancy accompaniment. The lovely Afghani (I believe) pottery dish that he served the rice in (photo above) gave the table a festive touch.

As we were all ooh-ing and ah-ing over the unusualness of this dish at the table, I mentioned that the word tamarind in English and Japanese comes from the Arabic for "Indian date". It's a slightly different word in Persian, so our host didn't know this, either, but serendipitously, he had some fresh dates for us as our take-home gift of the day!

Later we had cardamom tea (with a splash of rose water in my case), the almond brittle (which our hosts had made in advance) and a Persian snack of grains scented with what seemed to me to be violet and rose. Delicious! I was so into the food by this time that I forgot to take a picture, but you won't be far off the mark if you let your mind conjure up something from The Arabian Nights (g).

Lovely!

Shiomomi nasu: Salt-massaged eggplants with Japanese aromotics

2010-07-09T12:50:00.011+09:00

I have been addicted to nasu (Japanese eggplants) this last while. They are everywhere at the moment, and the cooking magazines (which I really have to stop tempting myself by looking at) have 101 different ways to use them. The "Mighty Nasu" indeed (to paraphrase one of my foodie heroes Ottolenghi).

Yes, the eggplant/aubergine/patlican/baademjaan/badinjaan/baingan/ brinjal is beloved to many cuisines, but have you ever had it raw?? Most of the world makes a fuss about removing the bitterness from eggplants before cooking them, but here in Japan, it couldn't be easier: Just squish around in a bag with salt! The dark, bitter juices come right out, and you don't even need to cook them. How good is that?

This quick side dish recipe is from the June 17, 2010 edition of the Japanese food fortnightly Orange Page (don't ask; I'm as mystified by the name as anyone...). I thought it not bad, for my first attempt at salt-massaged eggplants, but with the Japanese big three aromatics shiso (perilla leaves), myoga (myoga ginger) and raw fresh ginger, it may be a bit "medicinal" for some tastes.

The trick to this dish is to make sure that all the eggplant slices get massaged well, and to slice the aromatics very finely.

I haven't tried this with the larger eggplants that you tend to find outside Japan, which are called bei-nasu (American eggplant) in Japan. For now, I suggest you seek out small, round Japanese nasu, which weigh about 80-100 g each.

Salt-massaged eggplants with Japanese aromatics

Serves 4 as a small side dish with other Japanese dishes

2 nasu Japanese eggplants (about 160 g total), sliced into 2 mm thick rounds
2/3 tsp salt
3 shiso (perilla) leaves, rolled and sliced very thinly
1 myoga (myoga ginger) bud, halved lengthwise and sliced thinly
1 thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped into thin shreds
splash of Japanese soy sauce (to taste)

1 Place the eggplant slices in a small polythene bag and add the salt. Press out all the air and hold the opening of the bag tightly closed with a thumb. With both hands, gently squeeze the eggplant slices until they loose their juices, most of their bulk and become pliant. Make sure not to miss any of the slices. Tip into a colander and rinse with water. With your hands, squeeze out as much of the water as possible.

2 In a small bowl, toss the shiso leaves and myoga. Add the salt-massaged eggplant, sliced ginger and a splash of Japanese soy sauce. Toss again and serve in tiny bowls as an accompaniment to other Japanese dishes.

Enjoy!

Harumi's summer: Rice bowl with stir-fried veggies & teriyaki chicken

2010-07-08T12:48:00.018+09:00

I must not buy cookbooks and foodie magazines, I must not buy cookbooks and foodie magazines, I must not buy...

And the reason I must not buy them is that I have been asked by the landlady to move out of my rented apartment after 15 years, as she wants to move in! I really don't know who she thinks she is! It is a terrible imposition, this not being able to buy cookbooks and--- (you get the picture).

I know it in my mind that I need to be shedding rather than adding to my foodie hoard, but heart wants what it wants. All of which is to say, I couldn't resist the latest edition of Haru-mi magazine, Harumi Kurihara's eponymous quarterly featuring, this time, izakaya-style recipes for summer.

Surprisingly, summer cooking in Japan does not necessarily mean light food. The humidity and high temperatures here can really zap the energy, and quite often people want a hearty meal to get them through the dog days of summer. Grilled eel is a case in point: Some enterprising eel purveyor back in the 1800s hit upon the idea of flogging his oil-rich catch as just the thing for boosting flagging energy levels during the summer. And just like that, a connection was made between eel eating and Doyo no ushi no hi (the hottest day of summer by the traditional Japanese calender; July 26 this year).

But I digress.

As I was saying, Japanese people often seek out substantial, well-seasoned food when the temperatures soar, so it is no surprise that quite a few of the dishes in the summer edition of Haru-mi are fairly hearty. This rice bowl being a case in point.

With a soy-and-sugar seasoned mince topping AND slices of teriyaki chicken, you might expect this to be stodgy, but the herbs and lemon keep this meal-in-a-bowl on the right side of the line.

The recipe does require some Japanese groceries, so do read it through first.

-- Mirin is a sweet sake used extensively in Japanese cooking. If you can't get it, you could try this substitute, just a plain sugar syrup or a dash of sugar at a pinch (but I wouldn't recommend this in this recipe).
--Katakuriko (dogtooth violet or more commonly potato starch) is used for thickening sauces and, as in this recipe, to give a distinctive mouthfeel.

On the other hand, you won't need store-bought teriyaki sauce for this recipe. Yay!

Rice bowl with stir-fried veggies & teriyaki chicken

For the ground meat topping

200g beef or pork mince
2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp sugar

For the stir-fried veggies
100 g bean shoots, roots removed
1/2 small zucchini, cut into 4 cm long batons
1 small red (bell) pepper, halved and cut into thin slices
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1/4 tsp powdered chicken stock
salt & pepper

For the teriyaki chicken
4 chicken fillets
salt & pepper
Katakuriko or cornflour (cornstarch), for dusting
2 tbsp Japanese soy sauce
2 tbsp mirin
2 tsp sugar

steamed rice
lemon halves
coriander leaves, mint leaves and toasted sesame seeds (optional) to garnish

1 Make the ground meat topping. Heat Japanese soy sauce, mirin and sugar in a small pot, add the mince and stir, breaking up with bamboo cooking chopsticks, until most of the liquid has evaporated. Remove from the heat and allow the meat to absorb the remaining liquid.

2 Prepare the bean shoots, zucchini and red pepper.

3 Make the teriyaki chicken. Remove any fibrous parts from the meat, place between layers of cling film and flatten with a rolling pin [Saffron: lazy folk, like me, can just flatten the fillets right on the chopping board with the heel of their hand (I won't tell, if you don't)]. Cut each slice in three width wise. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, and dust each piece with katakuriko or cornflour. Heat oil in a frying pan and fry chicken on both sides. Remove from the pan.

4 Wipe out the frying pan and bring the Japanese soy sauce, mirin and sugar to a boil. When it becomes glossy, add the cooked chicken and toss well to coat. Remove from the pan.

5 Heat a little more oil in the pan and toss the zucchini and red peppers until slightly softened. Add the bean shoots and toss until heated through. Add powdered chicken stock and salt and pepper to taste.

6 Place a single serving of rice in each of 4 domburi or pasta bowls. Top each bowl with a layer of vegetables and a layer of the ground meat topping, sprinkle with coriander and mint leaves, and place the chicken slices on top, sprinkling over any teriyaki sauce that remains. Squeeze lemon over and garnish with sesame seeds, if desired.

Enjoy!

Persian cooking class 2: Nan-cheese-herbs, fesenjan & rose jam

2010-05-17T12:41:00.008+09:00

I was super excited about my most recent Persian cooking class, as it was fesenjaan again! After my success with Najmieh Batmanglij's recipe in February, and after seeing our instructor Reza cooking this version on the NHK program Asia Crossroads, I was more than ready for another plate of Iran's classic party dish.

Reza's version, which somehow came to be dubbed "pomegranate curry" in Japanese, is certainly simpler than Najmieh khanom's. Onions and chicken are sauteed, and then spices and roughly chopped walnuts added. The chicken is removed, water added and the onion-nut mixture left to simmer for 20 min. It is then ground into a paste in a food processor or blender, making the sauce base. The chicken is returned, pomegranate paste and saffron water added and the lot left to simmer some more. The food processing bit seemed a bit radical to me, but certainly resulted in a smooth and dark sauce, so it looks like a winner.

None of my Japanese classmates had had fesenjaan before and were, I think, very pleasantly surprised by the combination of pomegranate and walnuts. In any event, there was a great deal of chatter about it round the table. Sour notes are not especially well represented in main dishes here, other than vinegared dishes like sushi, I suppose. No doubt an Iranian would probably have a similar reaction when presented with vinegared rice!

Speaking of rice, saffron rice was also on the menu, and the Iranian way with rice was another hot topic with my classmates. Japan is no stranger to rice, of course, but I can't think of any dish where boiling and draining the rice occurs. Grains that just hold together are preferred to separate grains, which would be much more difficult to corral with Japan's pointed chopsticks.

All of us had a surprise with our teacher's chosen method of cooking the nan for nan panir sabzi (bread, cheese and herbs), which was the appetizer for the evening. Flour tortillas (which being readily available, do duty as all kinds of flat breads) were toasted on a stove-top griller that's normally used for grilling fish here in Japan. Apparently it's the best way he's found of crisping up nan in Japan. There's a bit of a knack to getting the tortillas to puff up, but it works a treat. Must tell my dear Indian friend Sm next time he's in Japan!

Our last treat for the evening was rose jam. How wonderful to know that you can make jam from dried rose petals (or even rose "tea"! The roses here (even in Yokohama, which claims the bloom as it's city floral emblem) don't have a lot of perfume, let alone taste...

The dried rose petals are soaked in water for 3 hours, so you need to plan a bit in advance. Other than that, it's just sugar, rosewater and lemon or lime juice. But oh, oh! What a flavour. Although we had it with ice cream, rose jam is equally delicious on pancakes, bread and stirred into yogurt.

In Iran, of course, fresh rose petals are used, and it seems that when they are in season you get them from the veggie shop. How great would that be??!

Bonito bowl with Japanese aromatics and chilled miso soup with summer vegetables

2010-05-12T14:53:00.011+09:00

This is a recipe I learned around this time last year at the Japanese cooking classes I was taking at ABC Cooking Studio. It's a blow-you-away explosion of flavour that really wakes the tastebuds up!

Unfortunately, it contains some traditional Japanese aromatics that might be difficult to find outside the country. For green perilla (shiso), you could try substituting basil or even Thai basil, but there's not really any substitute for myoga (the bud of a ginger plant) that I know of. I've seen celery suggested, but other than a little crunch, I don't see any commonalities with myoga. Certainly, I wouldn't want celery with this dish, but to each their own. You'll also want to seek out ponzu or make your own instant ponzu by combining citrus juice (citron juice, for preference), soy sauce and unsalted dashi stock in a ratio of 1:1:1. (Or you could go the whole hog and make bottleable ponzu using this recipe, but that might be one to save until autumn, when citron is in season (g)) .

Katsuo no tataki, or bonito that has been seared on the outside and dunked in an ice bath to ensure that it is still raw inside, is sold in triangular ready-to-use blocks at Japanese supermarkets. You could try tuna or horse mackerel if bonito is not available, but there's no need to do the searing and ice bathing routine for this recipe, as the fish will be lightly fried in any case.

This went very nicely with chilled miso soup with summer vegetables, another ABC recipe. Chilled miso is a specialty of Miyazaki Prefecture, although this recipe seems to be a pared back version. There's no cooking involved in this, so it's perfect for a muggy Japanese summer's evening. I say the recipe is for 3-4. ABC recipes are often so calibrated that the portions of each dish can be rather small. The original recipe is for 4, but the Young Man and I pretty much polished this off between us in one sitting. Greedy guts that we are (g).

Just a quick note about surigoma or ground sesame seeds. You can buy ready-ground sesame seeds in Japanese supermarkets, but the flavour is better if you toast and grind them to a fine powder yourself.

Bonito bowl with Japanese aromatics

Serves 3-4

200 g katsuo tataki or tuna or horse mackerel
1 tsp vegetable oil
2 tbsp ponzu

200 ml short-grain rice
200 ml water

For the aromatics
4 green perilla leaves (ao-jiso)
12 g fresh ginger
1 myoga (aka myoga ginger)

1 g shredded nori (optional)
12 g garlic, sliced and deep fried (optional)

4 tsp ponzu

1 Wash rice 4-5 times until the water runs clear. Cover with water and leave to soak for around 30 minutes, drain, then cook in a rice cooker with the measured water.

2 Prepare the aromatics. Cut the stalk out of the perilla leaves, stack one on top of the other and roll together to form a "cigar". Slice finely into shreds. Peel the ginger and finely julienne. Soak briefly in water, then drain. Cut the stalk off the myoga, halve lengthwise and slice finely on the diagonal. If using garlic chips, peel each clove and slice into rounds. Punch out any green part with a chopstick. Deep fry until golden brown at 160 degrees C, then drain on kitchen paper.

3 Cut slices from the bonito block about 7 mm thick. Heat vegetable oil in a large frying pan and cook bonito slices briefly, turn and cook the other side (about 2 min total). Remove to a bowl and pour over 2 tbsp ponzu.

4 To assemble, divide rice between bowls, top with bonito slices, shiso, ginger and myoga. Garnish with shredded nori and garlic chips, if using, and sprinkle 1 tsp of ponzu over each bowl.

Chilled miso soup with summer vegetables

For the soup
2 g dashi konbu (dried kelp for stock)
220 ml water
24 g miso paste (mixed miso, for preference)
2 tbsp white surigoma (roasted sesame seeds ground to a course powder)
1/2 tsp raw sugar

2 ripe fruit tomatoes or other mid-sized tomatoes, peeled
1/2 Japanese cucumber (around 50 g)
1 myoga bud

1 Make the dashi. Wipe the kombu with a damp cloth and make cuts in 2-3 places to help the flavour come out. Place in the water and leave for at least 30 min.

2 Prepare the vegetables. With a sharp knife, cut the tomatoes in half through the stalk end, then cut shallow crosses in the rounded side of each tomato half. Slice the cucumber thinly on the diagonal, then cut the slices lengthwise into shreds. Cut the stalk off the myoga and halve lengthwise. Cut each half into thin slices on the diagonal.

3 Make the soup. With a whisk, blend the miso, sesame paste or tahini and raw sugar until smooth. Gradually stir in the kombu dashi. Chill until ready to serve.

4 To serve, place tomato halves in four bowls with the rounded side upwards. Divide the soup between the bowls and top each tomato half with the cucumber and myoga.

Enjoy!

Persian cooking class!

2010-04-23T10:59:00.000+09:00

A serendipitous series of events led me to discover that a Persian cooking class is being held right here in Tokyo!

And even more exciting, the instructor, Reza Rahbar, is from down south in the Persian Gulf region of Iran. The Persian cookbooks in my collection do not cover this area of the country, and from the recipes Reza presented on the Ajiwai Kitchen segment of the NHK program Asia Crossroads in April, I knew I was in for something a bit different!

The class was held in a private apartment in swanky Aoyama, just a couple of stops by subway from my office. It was a very homey atmosphere, with a dining table set for 6 and a small hob where the cooking demonstration and hands-on cooking took place.

Reza-sensei was a charming host and very laid back in the kitchen, answering my barrage of questions as we went along.

The first dish we made were adorable kupeh fried rice cakes stuffed with a delicious filling of mince, onions, yellow split peas, sultanas, saffron and cinnamon (photo above). The aroma was very much like that of my favourite adas polo (rice with lentils and dried fruit). I wondered if they also eat adas polo where kupeh are from, and it seems they do. A variation on a theme, then.

The assembly of these little parcels is quite fiddly, but the resulting packets were like tah-dig sandwiches. Delicious.

Next, we made sandali soltan ("the Sultan's seat"), a puree of garlic and turmeric-infused broad beans that was topped with ground dried lemons and sizzling olive oil, giving that unmistakable Persian tartness. I was surprised to know that this relative of the myriad purees, pastes and dips that feature heavily in non-Persian Middle Eastern meze, is considered a borani. I had thought that borani were all yogurt "salads". There you go!

With glasses of wine (at a small extra cost), we ate this with fresh chives and crackers, although it would probably have been lavash in Iran. Great stuff.

The other two dishes were a delectable stew of layered lamb, vegetables and prunes, which had been prepared in advance due to time constraints; and a dessert of dates stuffed with almonds and dusted with rosewater, coconut and cardamom that Reza prepared while we ate the first two courses, all washed down with Persian tea and saffron sugar crystals.

At the end of the meal, we were all happily sated and eager for the next session.

This was a trial lesson for me, but I think I was sold the moment I walked in the door to such a warm welcome, knowledgeable host, and the thoughtful offer of wine. A designer by trade, Reza had personalized our recipe sheets with beautiful artwork, and even presented us all with a thank you gift of two dried lemons in a presentation bag with a tag of his own design.

It was a lovely finishing touch to what had been a very enjoyable session of cooking with (new) friends. I signed up for more on the spot (g).

Diana Henry's lamb and orange khoresh

2010-04-18T22:41:00.017+09:00

When I wrote about Margaret Shaida's Orange khoresh back in January, I knew I would have to revisit the version in Diana Henry's Crazy Water Pickled Lemons. Diana's version of orange stew was one of my very first forays into the wide world of Middle Eastern cooking. It really opened up my eyes and taste buds to how good the eating is in that part of the world!

There is some kind of alchemy involved in this dish. Other than orange flower water (which I consider optional, as it makes little difference to the taste in all honesty), there is nothing out of the ordinary in this recipe, but for a citrus lover like me, the results are nothing short of phenomenal!

Diana does not give a source for her recipe, but she's definitely done her homework, and perhaps even bettered the other versions of this delightful dish that I've tried since. Her addition of mint is inspired (whatever made her think of adding mint to lamb...? (g)), and really lifts this dish onto a higher plain. I use teeny, tiny peppermint leaves, which do take some prepping, but I think it's worth it.

On the other hand, Diana saves us some time by only boiling the orange peel once to remove the bitterness. Most recipes call for several changes of water to do this job. However, since we are using lamb here, it can take the stronger orange flavour very well.

I've adjusted Diana's recipe for the pressure cooker. The meat will take roughly double the time to cook in step 3 if simmering without pressure.

All in all, I would say that this is my favourite orange khoresh, if not one of my very favourite things to eat. If it takes a little time to make, I'm not going to complain. It is a joy to make something so very good to eat.

Lamb and orange khoresh

Serves 6

3 oranges
40 g unsalted butter
2 tsp caster sugar
olive oil
675 g lamb from the leg, cut into 3-4 cm cubes
2 onions, thinly sliced
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground cardamom
275 ml orange juice
Juice of 1 lime
275 ml lamb stock or water
salt and pepper
3 carrots
good handful of mint leaves, torn
2 tsp orange flower water
25 g shelled pistachios, roughly chopped, to garnish

1 Remove peel from the oranges with a vegetable peeler, taking care to leave the pith behind, and cut into fine strips about the size of a match. Cover with cold water, bring to the boil, cook for 2 min, then strain. Heat half the butter in a a small pan and add the orange rind. Stir, then add the sugar and cook over a medium heat for a couple of minutes, until the sugar has melted and the rind has lightly caramelized. Set aside.

2 Heat 2 tbsp of olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pressure cooker. Fry the lamb cubes over fairly high heat, so that they get a good browning on the outside. You should do this in batches to ensure that they get properly coloured. Remove and set the lamb aside.

3 Add another 1 tbsp of olive oil to the pressure cooker with the rest of the butter. Heat this and saute the onion until soft and translucent. Sprinkle on the cinnamon and cardamom and cook for another minute. Add the juices, stock and water, and the lamb, with any juices that have run out of it. Season, seal the pressure cooker and and bring up to pressure. Turn down the heat and cook at low pressure for 40 min.

4 Peel the carrots and cut them into batons about 6 cm long. Using a very sharp knife, remove the white pith from the oranges then, cutting close to the membrane, remove each segment. Add the carrots and caramelized orange peel (reserving a little for garnishing) to the lamb once it has been cooking 40 min. Simmer, uncovered, for a further 20 min, adding the orange segments in the last 10 min. Gently stir in half of the mint in the last couple of minutes.

5 Stir the orange flower water, if using, into the khoresh and turn it into a heated bowl, scattered with the remaining mint and orange peel and the pistachios. Serve with plain white rice.

Enjoy!

Aash-e reshteh: Ottolenghi's take on the Persian soup

2010-03-22T12:32:00.012+09:00

Happy Persian New Year! It's No Ruz again and that means aash-e reshteh (Iranian noodle soup) at the Saffron household.

A couple of weeks back, Yotam Ottolenghi posted this recipe for legume and noodle soup in his New Vegetarian column on the Guardian website. One look at the picture and I was mitten. It wasn't until I read through the recipe that I realized it was the Ottolenghi take on aash-e reshteh! And just in time for the spring equinox, and No Ruz. I knew I had to try it!

Chock-full of greenery to celebrate the arrival of spring, I have always thought of aash-e reshteh as a herb and spinach noodle soup, but I guess there are other interpretations (g). With three different legumes--chickpeas, butterbeans and yellow split peas--legume-lovers will certainly cheer at Ottolenghi's version (g).

The soup has a lovely velvetiness from the yellow split peas and is garnished beautifully with turmeric onions (you could also add some dried mint to the onion garnish, as Najmieh-khanom does), sour cream and a few reserved butterbeans and chickpeas. It's those cheffy but not fussy little Ottolenghi touches that I love. It looks lovely and tastes like spring should.

All those lovely legumes means, of course, that you are going to have to get them recipe-ready (almost, but not quite cooked). The easy way--if you have a pressure cooker-- is to soak and cook each variety separately. After soaking for 8 hours, it only took me about 10 minutes to get both legumes cooked up this way (around 2.5 min for the chickpeas once they came to pressure, and around 6 min for the "butterbeans" (in my case a pricey larger Japanese variety called shirohana-mame). Real butterbeans would probably take less time, I suppose.) I don't soak with bi-carb soda, but it could make a difference to the cooking time, who knows? When in doubt about cooking times, err on the side of caution with a pressure cooker. You can always cook some more if you need to.

Does all that sound like a lot of work? It's really not. I made this version much quicker than the Najmieh Batmaglij recipe I usually follow from Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies. And the results were just as fabulous, even substituting hard-to-find ingredients like kashk (whey paste) with readily available ingredients like sour cream and vinegar. I'm now hard-pressed to say which version I prefer!

I have been tickled pink to see Ottolenghi showcasing Persian cooking of late; first with eggplant kuku and now aash-e reshte. With food this moreish, all I can say is More please!

Legume noodle soup: Ottolenghi's take on aash-e reshteh

Serves 8

125 g dried chickpeas, soaked in water overnight with 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
125 g dried butterbeans, soaked in water overnight with 1 tbsp bicarbonate of soda
2 large onions, thinly sliced
10 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
80 g clarified butter
1½ tsp turmeric
Salt and black pepper
225 g yellow split peas
Roughly 2 litres vegetable stock
35 g chopped parsley
35 g chopped coriander
15 g chopped dill
100 g spring onion, thinly sliced
150 g baby spinach
100 g reshteh (or linguine) [S: broken in half]
150 g soured cream, plus 1 tsp per portion to finish
1½ tbsp white wine vinegar
4 limes, halved

1 Drain and rinse both the chickpeas and butterbeans, then either boil them separately in lots of fresh water until almost cooked – anywhere between 25 and 55 min, or cook under low pressure for around 2.5 min for the chickpeas and around 5 min for the butterbeans, once they come to pressure – and drain. Reserve a few of each legume as a garnish

2 In a large, heavy-based pot, sauté the onion, garlic and butter on medium heat for 20 minutes, or until soft and golden-brown. Stir in the turmeric and some salt and pepper, then lift a third of this mix from the pot and transfer to a dish for use later.

3 Add the chickpeas and butterbeans to the pot, then add the split peas and stock. Simmer for 30 minutes, skimming off the froth occasionally, or until the peas are tender. Add the herbs, spring onion and spinach, stir and cook for 15 minutes more; add extra stock (or water) if the soup is very thick. Taste and season generously.

4 Add the noodles and cook for about 10 minutes, so that they are just done. Stir in the soured cream and vinegar, adjust the seasoning and serve at once, garnished with extra soured cream and the reserved cooked onion mix. Serve lime halves to squeeze over every portion.

Enjoy!

Kotmis Garo: Georgian chicken with garlic and walnut sauce

2010-03-07T17:32:00.009+09:00

I've been meaning to delve further into Georgian cooking for ages. The cuisine's tart, herby and garlicky tastes are like a red rag to a bull to me. Even just reading the recipes, I know the big, bold tastes are going to excite my taste buds.

This recipe comes from Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook by Anya von Bremzen & John Welchman. I can't tell you how much of a treasure this book is. Written in the dying years of the USSR, it covers all the states of the Union. The vastness of the USSR ensures that many of the world's great cuisines are represented in or at least influence "Russian" food. That makes this book, alongside other favourites likeThe Book of Jewish Food by Claudia Roden and Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian Cookbook, a real tour de force tour of the the world's cuisines.

I've heard it said more than once that Georgian cuisine is the "best" of the Soviet cuisines. I can't verify that, but I can easily see the attraction. Take this recipe: chicken marinated with garlic, lemon and olive oil, roasted, then slathered in a walnut-garlic sauce spiked with coriander, fenugreek, turmeric and cayenne pepper--a pared-back approximation of the Georgian spice mix khmeli-suneli.

Given the Young Man's more delicate palate, I had to cut back on the cayenne, which would have changed the flavour profile quite a bit. But to me, the sauce was like nothing I'd ever tasted before. Garlicky, a little sharp, a little herby, a little rich from the walnuts and a little musty (if you'd call it that) from the spices. Considering that it is made with finely chopped nuts, it is very smooth: perhaps the nuts "dissolve" a little when they come in contact with the liquid? Georgian cuisine has many delectable sauces, and this is just one.

The original recipe called for fresh tarragon. That herb is sometimes available here, but not on the day I did the shopping, so I substituted chervil, which has a similar anisey note. If you do the same, I reckon up the amount you use, as it is much subtler than tarragon.

As recommended in the OR, I served this with a tomato and garlic salad (recipe also in Please to the Table) and a vinaigrette dressed French potato salad. That was a lot of lip-smacking tartness, so next time I'd do the potatoes with a creamier dressing.

You need to start marinating this dish at least 6 hours, and make the sauce at least 2 hours before you plan to eat. The actual cooking will take just over half an hour, though.

Both the YM and I were licking our fingers after this.

Kotmis Garo: Georgian chicken with garlic and walnut sauce

Serves 4

4 large chicken legs, skin on
salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
50 ml olive oil
150 ml lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 sprigs fresh tarragon, stems crushed with the back of a knife

For the garlic and walnut sauce
3/4 cup walnut pieces
2-3 cloves garlic, peeled
1/4 cup fresh coriander
1/2 cup chicken stock, warm (not hot)
1 1/2 - 2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
salt, to taste
1/8 tsp ground coriander
1/8 tsp ground fenugreek
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1/4 tsp ground turmeric

1 Rub the chicken pieces thoroughly with salt and pepper.

2 Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, tarragon and additional salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Add the chicken and turn to coat with the marinade. Cover and refrigerate for a least 6 hours, turning occasionally.

3 Meanwhile, prepare the garlic and walnut sauce. In a food processor, combine the walnuts, garlic and half of the fresh coriander. Process until the walnuts are finely ground.

4 Transfer to a bowl and stir in the stock, lemon juice to taste, salt coriander, fenugreek, cayenne, turmeric and the remaining fresh coriander. Let the sauce stand at room temperature for at least 2 hours before serving.

5 Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Heat a large frying pan over high heat. Remove the chicken from the marinade and, without drying, place meat side down in the pan. Sear for about 3 min, turn once and sear the skin side for about 3 min. Place in hot oven and roast for 30 minutes, turning and basting with the remaining marinade once so that the skin side takes on a golden colour.

6 Serve accompanied by sprigs of fresh coriander, tarragon and mint.

Enjoy!

Fried potatoes with paprika and mint

2010-03-04T17:21:00.005+09:00

I was in a bind. I'd not done the weekly grocery shop as fridge space and time was at a premium getting ready for my big party. I literally just had staples in the house, and no chance to get groceries in before the weekend! It was a bit of a challenge, but the Young Man and I managed to eat very well, thanks to a binder full of recipes like this one I printed up ages ago from NPR.

S&L readers will probably already be familiar with the quintessentially Turkish paprika-mint flavour profile. It seems to have been news to NPR food writer T Susan Chang, however. She charmingly tells of her discovery here, and throws in a few recipes for good measure, including some adaptations of recipes from Australia's very own Greg and Lucy Malouf!

Essentially just potatoes, fat and spices, these are totally addictive! I made them to go with a red lentil soup (not the one in the article), so we had a Turkish supper made only from kitchen cupboard basics. I reckon these would also be great with beers (if you're into that) or instead of potato chips in front of the TV (if you have time for that).

I've upped the paprika and mint by 50% below, and added some cayenne to my own portion. Enough is just never enough with some people (g).

Fried potatoes with paprika and mint

900 g yellow-fleshed potatoes, such as Yukon gold or carola
Salt
3 tablespoons olive oil
3 teaspoons sweet paprika, divided
1 1/2 tablespoon dried mint, divided
Salt and pepper to taste

1 Fill a large saucepan with water; add the potatoes and as much salt as if you were cooking pasta. Bring the water to a boil, then simmer for 20 to 30 minutes, depending on size of potatoes, or until you can just pierce them with a sharp skewer. They shouldn't fall apart. Drain the potatoes and set aside to cool.

2 When the potatoes are cool enough to handle (and don't rush it), cut into 8 mm slices with a sharp knife. If you have large potatoes, divide them lengthwise in half before you start slicing, so you end up with half-moons rather than coins.

3 Heat the largest, heaviest skillet you have — cast iron works best — over high heat until it makes a water droplet dance. Add the olive oil, swirl it and immediately add the potatoes, half the paprika and half the mint. Spread the potatoes out into a single layer as best you can (you may need to do two batches). Let them cook without disturbing for 3 or 4 minutes, or until they have formed a gorgeous golden crust. Flip them over with a spatula, and cook the other side the same way, for 3 or 4 minutes. (If you're really obsessive about getting a good crust, as I am, you may find yourself swapping the outside potatoes into the center a few times.) [Me too, Susan]

4 Season with the remaining paprika and mint, and salt to taste. You don't really need pepper, but you might like it. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Najmieh Batmanglij's chicken fesenjaan

2010-02-28T23:19:00.011+09:00

It's been a while since my birthday party, but I've promised a my dear friend Zanmei in Iraq to post the recipe for fesenjaan, that wonderful Persian pomegranate and walnut stew, so that she can try her hand at it with local ingredients.

Fesenjaan (or fesenjoon and various alternative spellings) is perhaps not the prettiest dish in the Persian culinary book, but the lip-smacking tart fruitiness and creamy texture are unrivalled. Not surprising, then, that this is a classic of Iranian cuisine.

It was also this dish that got me to thinking about a possible connection between Persian and Georgian cuisine when I first started reading about the latter. The walnut sauce connection is undeniable. As to which came first, who knows? It has to be said that Georgia does seem to have a larger canon of walnut-based sauces...

For all the stature this particular dish has in Iran, this was actually my first time to make it myself. Walnuts--and pomegranate paste, for that matter--are pricey luxuries here in Japan. But if you can't splurge on your birthday, when can you, eh? You can get both at Tehran Shop in Yokohama, and various shops in Ameyoko in Ueno, Tokyo sell bulk nuts cheaply, if you are making this in Japan.

This recipe comes from Najmieh Batmanglij's New Food of Life: Ancient Persian and Modern Iranian Cooking and Ceremonies, the master work of the doyenne of Persian cooking. Najmieh khanom doesn't take shortcuts or spare the wallet. You've been warned (g).

For contrast, I've translated an alternative fesenjaan recipe, taken from the Ajiwai Kitchen segment of the NHK program Asia Crossroads, below Najmieh khanom's. I've not tried this version, but I probably will soon, as I am taking a cooking class with the guest cook on the Ajiwai Kitchen segment, Reza Rahbar. I'll let you know how that goes, shortly!

Pomegranate khoresh with chicken

Serves 6

2 large onions, peeled and thinly sliced
1 kg chicken legs or duck breast, skin removed and fut into bite-sized chunks
5 tbsp oil or butter [Saffron: you can get away with less]
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup pomegranate paste dissolved in 2 1/2 cups water, or 4 cups fresh-squeezed pomegranate juice
1 cup peeled and cubed butternut pumpkin (optional)
450 g shelled walnuts, chopped roughly
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground saffron dissolved in 1 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp sugar (optional)
Seeds of a fresh pomegranate, to garnish

1 In a large pot, brown onions and chicken in half the oil or butter. Add 1 tsp salt.

2 Heat 2 tbsp oil in a non-stick frying-pan and brown both sides of the butternut pumpkin, then set aside.

3 In a food processor, finely grind the walnuts, add the diluted pomegranate paste or pomegranate juice, cinnamon and saffron water and mix well to create a creamy paste.

4 Add the nut paste to the pot, stirring gently. If the pomegranate paste is too sour, add 2 tbsp sugar. Cover and simmer gently, stirring occasionally with a wooden spoon to prevent the walnuts from sticking, until the oil from the nuts rises to the surface. Add the browned butternut pumpkin and simmer until tender.

5 Taste the sauce and adjust for seasoning and thickness. If the stew is too thick, add warm water to thin it. The stew should taste sweet and sour according to your taste. Add pomegranate paste to sour the the taste or sugar to sweeten it.

6 Transfer to a serving dish and sprinkle with 2 tbsp fresh pomegranate seeds. Serve with steamed saffron rice.

Fesenjaan: Chicken stew with pomegranate and walnut

Serves 4

300 g chicken breast, cut into bite-sized pieces
3 tbsp pomegranate paste
70 g walnuts
1 pinch saffron threads
1 pinch sugar
2 tbsp boiling water
1 onion, sliced thinly
1 tsp plain flour
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
black pepper
1/3 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups water
1 tbsp vegetable oil
pomegranate seeds, to garnish (optional)

1 Heat oil in a frying pan and fry onions gently until they start to change colour.

2 Add chicken and brown on both sides.

3 Add cinnamon, black pepper, flour and salt and stir.

4 Add walnuts and fry for 1 min. Remove chicken pieces and set aside. Transfer the remainder of the frying pan contents to a pot, add water and simmer over medium heat until the nuts give off their oil.

5 In a blender or food processor, reduce the nut mixture to a paste.

6 Return nut paste to the pot and add the browned chicken pieces. Simmer at a medium heat.

7 Gently grind saffron and sugar with a small mortar and pestle and mix in the boiling water to dissolve. Add the saffron water and pomegranate paste to the chicken and simmer for 20 minutes.

8 Garnish with pomegranate seeds.

Enjoy!

Ottolenghi's eggplant kuku

2010-02-28T17:19:00.006+09:00

Photo courtesy of my dear friend Malaka at Aloha Mahalo

I've been meaning to give kuku, the Iranian filled omlette/frittata, a go for the looooongest time. Considering I have numerous delectable-sounding recipes in various Iranian cookbooks, it is ironic that it took a recipe from an Israeli chef to get the ball rolling, but there you go...

I first had kuku in Iran while staying with my dear friend Gh's family in Shiraz. Although a family of gourmands, my hosts ate simply in the evening as the midday meal was the main meal of the day. If I remember correctly, we had kuku twice, once a potato version that we had for dinner wrapped in lavash bread. The second time, one that we took with pots of other delicacies, bread and soft drinks to a pretty spot for a night-time picnic!

Featuring saffron and tart zereshk (dried barberries) this Ottolenghi version from the chef's New Vegetarian column in the Guardian contains some of the essence of Iran in one delicious dish.

I made this for my 40th birthday celebration, and it was a big hit with both guests and cook (g). It can be made up in advance (I made it the night before the party) and just reheated in the microwave. It is also lovely at room temperature, so great for a picnic (any time of day).

I used homemade ghee (made by my dear Indian friend S's Mum) instead of oil for the onions and eggplant, and the results were sensational. Really sweet and rich.

Barberries are tiny berries less than half the size of a dried cranberry. They are super tart and feature in quite a few Iranian dishes. I had some dried barberries lying about (the fresh ones I have stashed in the freezer would've been even better), but they may not be so easy to come by. In Japan, Tehran Shop in Yokohama (directions in Japanese here) stocks them, and in Melbourne, Australia, I've seen them at NSM Importers & Wholesalers, just down the road from Brunswick Station. If you can't get them, Ottolenghi recommends substituting 1 tbsp of lime juice. A lot of the other kuku recipes I have also have lime juice in them, so it is quite authentic. Give it a go! I might even add BOTH next time round!!

The recipe calls for a 22 cm spring-form cake tin. I was using mine for the birthday cake (!), so this went in the oven right in the T-fal wokpan the onions and eggplant were cooked in. It came out perfectly without greasing and papering and that's how I will cook it from now on.

My dear friend and fellow foodie Malaka at Aloha Mahalo, who took the photo above, blogged about the food at my party in Japanese here. Thanks Malaka, this one's for you!

Ottolenghi's eggplant kuku

Serves 6

120 ml sunflower oil, plus extra
3 medium onions, peeled and sliced
3 medium aubergines, peeled
5 free-range eggs
2 tbsp plain flour
1½ tsp baking powder
25g chopped parsley, plus extra to garnish
1 tsp saffron strands, dissolved in 1 tbsp of hot water
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
½ tsp salt
Black pepper
20g dried barberries, rinsed and dried

1 Heat the oven to 190C/375F/gas mark 5. Heat the oil in a large, heavy-based pan and sauté the onions over medium heat for seven minutes, until soft but not brown.

2 Meanwhile, cut the aubergines in two widthways, cut each half into 1cm-thick slices, then cut each slice into 1cm-thick strips. Add these to the onion pan and cook on medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, for around 10 minutes, until the aubergines are completely soft (add a little more oil if needed, but not a lot). Set aside to cool down.

3 In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs, flour, baking powder, parsley, the saffron and its water, garlic, salt and a good grind of pepper. Once smooth, fold in the barberries and the aubergine and onion mix.

4 Brush a 22 cm spring-form cake tin with plenty of oil, line with greaseproof paper and brush the paper with more oil. Pour the egg mix into the tin and bake for 30-40 minutes, until golden-brown and cooked through – insert a skewer in the middle to make sure the egg has set.
Remove from the oven and set aside to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature, sprinkled with parsley. It will keep in the fridge for two days.

Enjoy!

A 40th birthday celebration

2010-02-28T15:38:00.002+09:00

I celebrated my Big 4-0 in February and had the best time cooking up a storm to feed my guests.

As often happens given the month, there were some last minute cancellations.
The trains were also affected due to tsunami warnings after the massive earthquake in Chile. In our rush to get things ready for the party, none at the Saffron household had heard about that terrible tragedy.

I didn't really have a theme in mind for my party this time, but Iranian inspirations featured quite prominently in the end.

Here we have Iran's famed chicken fesenjan, a dish of particular delicacy (if not good looks) made with pomegranate molasses, ground walnuts and saffron.

Another Iranian-inspired delight is Israeli chef Ottolenghi's take on the Persian frittata, kuku. His moreish version is chock- full of caramelised onions, eggplant, little zesty barberries, and all perfumed with saffron. This is perfect party food and will probably go into high rotation.

I doubt any of my guests had had kuku before, but they cleaned it all up!

I decided to make the Bangladeshi curry at the last minute worrying, as always, that there would not be enough food. It was a little lucky that I did, as my dear Iranian friend M, who was to bring a main dish, took ill and wasn't able to make it in the end. M, I'm still looking forward to trying the carrot stew (g). The fact I was able to whip this up on the morning of the party will give you some idea of how easy it is (g).

In the cold corner, I put out two breads and two dips: the Argentinian chimchurri and plain breads, and the Syrian/Lebanese avocado appetizer and hummus with pomegranate molasses dip I've featured here before.

The salad was a brown rice variation on my red-and-green Christmas staple wild rice, pomegranate and parsley salad. I am totally devoted to the dressing in this salad, and this time, with the new Microplane I received from Saffron Papa and Mama as a birthday present, the lime zest grating was laughably easy. What did I do before I had this darling implement??

The piece de resistance was, of course, The Cake. (Or if you count my usual chocolate number, two cakes!) The cream topped cake was baked by my dearest friend, H, as a special order. It was a mighty big project, involving baking the two delicate layers one by one at home in Tokyo, then transporting them and the goodies to decorate the cake all the way to Yokohama for assembling the following day!

Called Persian Love Cake, this is not a true Iranian cake, but a divine cake inspired by the saffron, cardamom and rosewater flavours of the East. I don't think I've tasted anything more heavenly. Thanks, H. It was a spectacular end to what I think was a pretty good meal.

Thanks, also, to my dear friend Malaka at Aloha Mahalo for taking the lovely pictures you see here. If you can read Japanese, she blogged about the party here.

Saffron

One-pan Spanish chicken bake

2010-02-24T12:32:00.005+09:00

I am always on the lookout for recipes that don't take too long to make on busy Saturdays when the weekly house clean and grocery shop take place. I imagine that pasta would be the fallback for many in these sorts of circumstances, but just between you and me, I've never really got into the pasta groove. Guess I prefer a higher veggie : carb ratio than you get with pasta.

With no time till hitting the shops, I suddenly remembered this recipe in the September 2009 edition of Sainsbury's Magazine that I picked up when the Young Man and I were in Scotland last year. Only requiring you to fling a few things in a roasting tin and maybe basting them from time to time, it's a real corker for those times when you don't have time but want to eat well.

Not living in the UK where Spanish influences abound, I chorizo and smoked paprika were not to be had (I asked the spice people at Ohtsuya in Ueno about smoked paprika. They hadn't heard of it, but looked intrigued. Maybe they will look into it for me...). I used black pepper sausages and regular paprika instead. You could add a dash of cayenne to the paprika, as well, if you want.

I only had chickpeas in the freezer, so that's what we had. The original recipe called for jarred butter beans. A classier rendition of tinned beans, perhaps? I always think homemade is best, though, which is why I soak and pressure cook beans and store them in the freezer in approximately can-sized portions.

The picture of this dish in the magazine shows what looks to me like bone-in chicken thigh halves. My supermarket here in Yokohama has boned whole thighs only, so I used 3 large ones folded in half. I turned them over partway through cooking so that the skin on both sides crisped up golden and lovely (aided and abetted by the paprika oil, no doubt).

I also basted the chicken and veggies a few times, mainly because I am not used to standing around doing nothing while the dinner cooks itself. It's just not cooking! (g) I skipped the sage as the Young Man is a bit of a non-fan.

And the taste? Superb! I loved the citrusy notes, the creamy garlic and, surprisingly, the baked sausages.

Sainsbury's Everyday Easy one-pan Spanish chicken bake

Serves 4

400 g cooked butter beans or cannellini beans
2 medium sweet potatoes, peeled, halved lengthwise and cut into large chunks
3 red peppers, deseeded and cut into large chunks
250 g chorizo or other sausages, cut into bite-size pieces
1 bulb garlic, loose papery skin removed but left whole
200 ml chicken stock
2 large oranges, one juiced and the other cut into wedges
2 tsp sweet smoked paprika
8 chicken pieces
1 tbsp olive oil, plus a little more
a handful of fresh sage leaves
sea salt

1 Preheat the oven to 22 degrees C. Arrange the beans, sweet potatoes, peppers, sausage and garlic in a large roasting tin about 30 x 42 cm.

2 Mix the stock, orange juice and 1 tsp of the smoked paprika Pour into the tin and toss with the vegetables.

3 Put the chicken pieces on top of the vegetables to ensure they crisp up while cooking. Sprinkle with a little sea salt and a good grinding of black pepper.

4 Roast for about 40 min. Mix the oil with the rest of the smoked paprika.

5 After 40 min, brush the chicken with the smoked paprika oil and add the orange wedges to the tin. Dip the sage leaves in a little oil and scatter over. Roast for a further 10-15 min, or until the chicken and vegetables are cooked through. Leave to rest for 10 min. Don't forget to give everyone some of the lovely creamy roast garlic!

Enjoy!

Ottolenghi's harissa-marinated chicken with pink grapefruit salad

2010-02-11T17:07:00.007+09:00

The weather's been pretty miserable in Tokyo this February. Clouds, rain, snow! Dull weather always gives me the blahs, and that sometimes that affects the weekly menus I cobble up before doing the weekly shop.

I usually try to limit myself to one cook book when planning the meals for a week. It keeps the cook book clutter to a minimum (g). But I wasn't getting the right vibe from the book I'd chosen for the week. Not enough vavoom. You really need vavoom when the weather's miserable. So it just had to be Ottolenghi: The Cookbook.

Not all of the recipes in Ottolenghi are weeknight friendly, it has to be said. It is, after all, a restaurant cook book. You would probably want to be a bit dedicated (do I hear you say obsessed?!) to attempt this when you don't have a few hours spare. Luckily, February 11 was a national holiday in Japan. Unfortunately, it was also the day that Iran's Green Movement was to gate-crash the hardliners' own revolution anniversary party! I was glued to the computer, with BBC Worldwide playing in the background. Other than making the harissa paste and slathering the chicken in the marinade in the morning (the night before would have been even better!), I had to rush at this like it was a weeknight dinner in order to get back to the action in Iran.

But it was well worth it. This has vavoom and then some! A real harissa marinade (also excellent as a dip; I'll be making more of this very soon!), peppery rocket, mild pink grapefruit and a grapefruit-lemon-honey sauce (lip-smackingly fabulous and very much to be recommended!).

I have a spice grinder, which makes powderising the spice seeds a breeze. You could probably get away with using pre-ground spices, but only if they're really fresh. You'll want to toast them for a shorter time, in that case. Just until they start smelling fragrant. My little grinder cost about 3,000 yen (around US$30) and I wouldn't part with it now.

Since my chilli-averse Young Man was going to have this, I scaled the chilli way back and doubled the coriander, cumin and caraway seeds in the harissa. The original recipe is for 1/4 tsp of each seed, if you want to revert to that.

I used yellow pepper in this, having used up the red in another dish. The tomato puree covered that up very nicely, though. I also substituted honey for the maple syrup. Delicious, either way, I'd say!

Oh, and don't you just love the description of segmenting a grapefruit in this recipe! Or am I sounding a bit too "recent convert" to you...?

Harissa-marinated chicken with pink grapefruit salad

Serves 4

800 g chicken thighs

For the harissa marinade
1 red pepper
1/2 tsp coriander seeds
1/2 tsp cumin seeds
1/2 tsp caraway seeds
1/2 tbsp olive oil
1 small red onion, roughly chopped
3 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
2 mild fresh red chillies, seeded and roughly chopped
1 dried red chilli, seeded and roughly chopped
1/2 tbsp tomato puree
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp Greek yogurt (or strained plain yogurt)

For the pink grapefruit salad
2 pink grapefruits
120 g peppery wild rocket
1 tsp olive oil
course sea salt and black pepper

For the sauce
150 ml pink grapefruit juice
130o ml lemon juice
150 ml maple syrup (or honey)
1/4 tsp salt
a pinch ground cinnamon
1 star anise

1 First make the marinade for the chicken. Over a gas ring or under a very hot grill, toast the red pepper until blackened on the out side. This should typically take about 8 min on an open flame, 15-20 min under a very hot grill. Place the pepper in a bowl, cover with cling film and leave to cool. Peel the pepper and discard the seeds.

2 Place a dry frying pan on a low heat and lightly toast the coriander, cumin and caraway seeds for 2 min. You should be able to smell the aromas of the spices. Transfer them to a pestle and mortar and grind to a powder.

3 Heat the olive oil in a frying pan, add the onion, garlic, and fresh and dried chillies and fry until they turn a dark, smoky colour. Blitz together all the marinade ingredients except the yogurt in a food processor or blender; you will have a pure harissa paste.

4 To marinate the chicken, mix the paste with the yogurt and use your hands to rub it all over the chicken thighs. Layer them in a plastic container, seal and refrigerate overnight.

5 The next day, take each grapefruit and use a small, sharp knife to slice off the top and tail. Now cut down its sides, following its natural lines, to remove the skin and white pith. Over a small bowl, cut in between the membranes to remove the individual segments. Squeeze any remaining juice into a bowl and keep to make up the 150 ml juice required for the sauce.

6 Preheat the oven to 220 degrees C. Lay out the marinated chicken pieces, spaced well apart, on a large baking tray and place in the hot oven. After 5 min, reduce the oven temperature to 180 degrees C and cook for another 12-15 min, until the chicken is almost cooked. Now place the chicken under a hot grill to give it extra colour and cook it through completely.

7 Meanwhile, place all the sauce ingredients in a small pan and bring to a light simmer. Simmer for about 20 min, or until reduced to a third.

8 To serve, toss the rocket and grapefruit segments with the olive oil, salt and pepper, Pile in the centre of 4 serving plates, put the warm chicken on top and drizzle about a tablespoonful of the sauce over each portion.

Enjoy!

Ottolenghi's meatballs baked in tahini

2010-01-21T16:55:00.012+09:00

I've been in a bit of an Ottolenghi kick the last while. The man has a genius for putting the bold and brassy tastes I love together to make something even better. I just can't get enough of him. You might say I have the overwhelming devotion of a new convert (g).

This is recipe from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook is a variation of an Arab dish I made some time back based on a recipe from The Arab Table by May Bsisu that I found quoted on NPR.

Both recipes feature spiced mincemeat baked in a tart-but-creamy tahini sauce. In May Bsisu's version, the meat is pressed into the baking dish in meatloaf fashion, while it is formed into meatballs in this rendering. Where May Bsisu's sauce is sharpened with lemon juice, Ottolenghi's takes its tang from vinegar. Given the title of my blog, you probably won't be surprised to learn that I prefer the lemony version; but making the kafta into balls is a pretty good idea too.

I also adore the parsley and lemon zest topping in the Ottolenghi version. I've doubled the amount of lemon zest here, but that's totally up to you.

You can also vary the spices depending on your taste or whim. I'm not a big fan of allspice, so I reduced the amount of that spice and ramped up the others.

This was a big hit with the Young Man, who can't seem to get enough of meatballs in all their incarnations, and I make some pretty "out-there" versions (g). Despite the ordinary-sounding name given this dish, some might consider it a little out-there. Not to worry. It is the real deal and would make a lovely introduction to Arab cuisine, even for the less adventurous. Just make sure there are no sesame-averse people in your crowd.

Next time, I'm going to cross the two recipes and see what we come up with!

Meatballs baked in tahini

Serves 4-6

35 g stale white bread, crusts removed
600 g minced meat
3 garlic cloves, crushed
35 g flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 egg
light olive oil for frying
1 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley, to garnish
grated zest of 1 lemon, to garnish

For the tahini sauce
150 ml tahini paste
150 ml water
70 ml white wine vinegar
1 garlic clove, crushed
a pinch of salt

1 First make the tahini sauce. In a bowl, mix together the tahini paste, water, vinegar, garlic and salt. Whisk well until it turns smooth and creamy, with a thick, sauce-like consistency. You might need to add some more water. Set the sauce aside while you make the meatballs.

2 Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Soak the bread in cold water for 2-3 min until it goes soft. Squeeze out most of the water and crumble the bread into a mixing bowl. Add the minced meat, garlic, parsley, salt, spices and egg and mix well with your hands.

3 Shape the meat mixture into balls, roughly the size of golf balls, Pour a 5 mm depth of light olive oil into a large frying pan. Heat it up, being careful it doesn't get too hot or it will spit all over when frying. Shallow fry the meatballs in small batches, turning them round as you go, until they are uniformly brown on the outside.

4 Put the meatballs on kitchen paper to soak up the oil and then arrange them in a single layer in an ovenproof serving dish. Place in the oven for 5 min. Carefully remove from the oven, pour the tahini sauce over and around the meatballs and return to the oven for another 10 minutes. The tahini will take on just a little bit of colour and thicken up; the meatballs should be cooked through. Transfer to individual plates, garnish liberally with the parsley and lemon zest and serve at once.

Enjoy!

Chargrilled asparagus, zucchini and semi-dried tomato salad with yogurt cheese

2010-01-15T12:48:00.010+09:00

When I was in Ikea for a bookcase to corral my ever-expanding cookbook collection (I swear that they reproduce all by themselves; it's nothing to do with me!), I found a cast-iron ridged grill pan/griddle. Ooohhh. I've been wanting one of those for soooo long. The Young Man said he'd chip in to get it for me as a Christmas present (he can be a real sweetie like that and he certainly knows the way to his mother's heart (g)).

The find couldn't have come at a better time, as I'd spied this lip-smacking salad in my new Ottolenghi cookbook (see previous post). The photo of the salad in the book is pure food porn. It was the first thing my dear friend H pointed out when she flipped through it, too.

Admittedly, this is a little bit fiddly, but the results are sensational. The YM was totally blown away by this, and was showing it off at school the next day. That is without the manouri cheese, which, even if available here, would probably cost an arm and a leg anyway (butter is now up to 360 yen for 200 g. It's an outrage!).

Instead, I drained plain yogurt in a kitchen towel-lined sieve for a day. That is longer than I've ever drained yogurt, but in truth, it wasn't long enough to get a really cheese-like firmness. Not to worry, it was very tasty just the same. Next time I'll just start the night before. The cheese is chargrilled, too, in the original recipe, but drained yogurt would just melt at that temperature, so we didn't go there.

I was so pleased with the semi-dried cherry tomatoes in this recipe that I've since made up a whole batch (dried for an hour and a half) and put them in a jar with olive oil. Yum! These are going to go in some homemade bouillon I'm going to make based on this River Cottage recipe highlighted on 101 cookbooks.

Chargrilled asparagus, zucchini and semi-dried tomato salad

Serves 4-6

350 g cherry tomatoes, halved
95 ml olive oil
24 asparagus spears
2 zucchini
500 g plain yogurt, drained for 24 hours
25 g rocket
course sea salt and black pepper

For the basil oil
75 ml olive oil
1 clove garlic, chopped
25 g basil leaves
pinch of salt
1/4 tsp black pepper

1 The night before, drain yogurt by drain yogurt in a kitchen paper-lined sieve over a bowl in the fridge. You should end up with a large disc of yogurt cheese.

2 Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C. Mix the tomatoes with 3 tbsp of the olive oil and season with some salt and pepper. Spread out on a baking tray lined with baking paper, skin side down. Roast in the oven for 50 min or until semi-dried. You can leave them in for a bit more or less, depending on how dry you like them. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

3 Meanwhile, trim the woody bases off the asparagus and blanch for 3-4 min in plenty of boiling water. Drain and refresh under cold water, making sure the spears are completely cold. Drain well again, then transfer to a mixing bowl and toss with 2 tbsp of the remaining olive oil and some salt and pepper.

4 Slice the zucchini thinly lengthwise. Mix in 1 tbsp of the olive oil and some salt and pepper.

5 Place a ridged griddle pan on a high heat and leave there for a few minutes. It should be very hot. Grill the zucchini and asparagus , turning them over after about 1 min. You want to get nice char marks on all sides. Remove and leave to cool.

6 To make basil oil, blitz all the ingredients in a small food processor or blender.

7 To assemble, arrange the rocket, vegetables and drained yogurt in layers on a serving plate. Try to build the salad up while showing all the individual components. Drizzle with basil oil and serve.

Enjoy!

Ottolenghi's roast chicken with sumac, za'atar and lemon

2010-01-12T22:43:00.013+09:00

I had a little manna from Amazon Japan at the end of last year. Ottolenghi: The Cookbook, which I had been lusting after for ages (but hanging out for the paperback edition), was somehow on sale for under 2,000 yen: nearly half-price. I jumped right in and bagged myself the last copy at that price--book storage space worries be damned!

I can't remember when I first heard the name Ottolenghi, but have been following the London restaurant chain's eponymous founder in his New Vegetarian column on the Guardian for ages, so I knew the guy had the goods for me: bold tastes, layers of flavour, and plenty of tartness (favourite ingredients like sumac, pomegranate molasses and lemons (!) all feature prominently).

Judging by the size of his Guardian archive, Yotam Ottolenghi (the chef) clearly has a big heart. This shows absolutely in Cookbook, which is lovingly written with partner/Ottolenghi head chef Sami Tamimi, and showcases recipes from other Ottolenghi (the restaurant) leading lights: a bonus I wasn't expecting. I also loved the touching story of the pair's meeting in London after living parallel lives for years on the two sides of the Israel/Palestine divide. May delicious food unite us all.

This was my Cookbook debut, made for my dearest friend H, who had kindly offered to come, jet lagged, 70 minutes to Yokohama to help me build a bookcase (just in time, really)!

The recipe is apparently a pared down version of the Palestinian classic, m'sakhan. Elsewhere on the Net, you'll find that dish described as spiced chicken with caramelized onions and bread. Ottolenghi's recipe doesn't caramelize the onions, but next time, I might fish out the onions from the marinade and fry them up for a few minutes before putting the whole thing in the oven.

A couple of notes to myself, here: do not use lemons which you've already zested for another recipe (the bitterness from the exposed pith was a bit annoying when I reheated this for lunch the next day. My fault. Live and learn.) And I reckon go with chicken legs next time: saves on chopping up and everyone gets a leg that wants one (everyone, really)!

This dish needs to marinate overnight, so you'll need to be prepared. And please don't be tempted to chop all those onions at midnight after a few glasses of wine, boys and girls. Auntie Saffron knows what she's talking about!

Oh, and if you don't have a bag of za'atar (a blend of thyme, sesame and sumac) lying about (g), you could try this recipe. In Japan, I have seen sumac/somaq at Tehran Shop near Yokohama (see here for directions in Japanese). It is also used in Turkish cooking, so you might be able to track it down at one of the many online Turkish shops.

Roast chicken with sumac, za'atar and lemon

Serves 4

1 large chicken, divided into quarters, breast and wing, leg and thigh, or 4 large leg & thigh pieces
2 red onions, thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
4 tbsp olive oil, plus more for drizzling
1 1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sumac
1-2 lemons, thinly sliced
200 chicken stock or water
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tbsp za'atar
20 g unsalted butter
50 g pine nuts
4 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley

1 In a large bowl, mix the chicken with the onions, garlic, olive oil, spices, lemon, stock or water, salt and pepper. Leave in the fridge to marinate for a few hours or overnight.

2 Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Transfer the chicken and its marinade to a baking tray large enough to accommodate all the chicken pieces lying flat and spaced apart. They should be skin-side up. Sprinkle the za'atar over the chicken and onions and put the tray in the oven. Roast for 30-40 min, until the chicken is coloured and just cooked through.

3 Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small frying pan, add the pine nuts and a pinch of salt and cook until they are golden. Transfer to a plate lined with kitchen paper to absorb the fat.

4 Transfer the hot chicken to a serving plate and finish with the chopped parsley, pine nuts and a drizzle of olive oil. You can sprinkle on more za'atar and sumac, if you like.

Enjoy!

Osechi tier 2

2010-01-04T00:11:00.019+09:00

(1) Date-maki (sweet rolled omlette with fish paste)

Symbolizes fashion sense
Time/Effort: * Cost: * Flavour: ***

This is super easy, delicious and quite dramatic in the jubako. Unlike regular sweet rolled omlettes, this one contains the fluffy, white fish cake hanpen. This makes for a lusciously spongy omlette. Date-maki mats are not readily available, even in Japanese department stores. I managed to acquire one at the Kappa-bashi cooking supplies town in Tokyo, but only after the fact. A regular sushi rolling mat will do fine, even if it does not produce the customary zig-zag pattern.

4 eggs
1 hanpen (a cake of pounded white-fleshed fish) (approx. 110 g)

32 g cane sugar or other brown sugar [Saffron: I used tensaito (beet sugar)]
1 tbsp mirin
1/4 tsp Japanese soy sauce [S: Do not substitute Chinese soy; it is much saltier]

1/2 tsp vegetable oil

Equipment:
Date-maki mat or sushi rolling mat
2 elastic bands

1 Break hanpen up and place in the bowl of a food processor or blender. Add eggs, cane sugar, mirin and Japanese soy sauce and process or blend for 30 sec.

2 Heat oil in a medium frying pan. Pour in the hanpen-egg mixture and cover with a lid. Cook on a medium flame for 1 min, then reduce the heat to low and cook a further 15-20 min, or until the omlette is cooked through when pierced with a skewer and the top is dry. Turn off the heat, cover and leave to steam for a further 3 min.

3 Remove omlette from the pan onto a chopping board. Form into a "rectangle" by cutting off a 1.5 cm strip of omlette from the left and right sides and the edge furthest from you. Keep the uncut side closest to you. You will now have three long semi-ovals of cutout omlette. Cut the left and right semi-ovals in half across the middle.

4 Place the date-maki or sushi rolling mat on your work surface with the narrow side closest to you. Cover with cling film. Now place your omlette on top, with the uncut side closest to you. Keeping close to this edge, place the omlette cutouts on top of the omlette "rectangle" so that they form a neat rectangle at the "bottom" of your roll.

5 Firmly roll the omlette from bottom to top, keeping the wrap out of the way as you go. You should end up with a tight egg roll. Fold the ends of the wrap in at the sides. Secure the egg in the mat with a rubber band at each end, and leave to cool. If making ahead, refrigerate until ready to serve. To serve, remove rubber bands, mat and wrap, and slice omlette roll into eighths.

(2) Chicken matsukaze-yaki (Wind-in-the-Pines chicken loaf)

Time/Effort: * Cost: * Flavour: ***

This is another relatively easy Osechi fix. I upped the ginger a little from the original recipe. It is subtle, but certainly there. Use as little as 1/2 tsp, to suit your taste. You will need either a nagashi-bako, a two-part tin used in Japanese sweet-making, or a 15 cm x 15 cm square cake tin. I priced the correct-sized nagashi-bako at a local department store at 3,400 yen, and decided that was too much for something that will only get used once in two years. Kappa-bashi had the same item for under 2,000. I used the cake tin instead. I think I will scale the recipe up by 10% next time, to get thicker shapes at the end. If white poppy seeds and nori flakes are hard to come by, regular and black sesame seeds can be substituted. Sprinkle prior to baking. Matsuba-gushi (seen in the photos here) are used on happy occasions, such as weddings, as they symbolize two as an inseparable one. Unfortunately, they are a little hard to come by. I used regular dango skewers instead.

200 g chicken mince

4 tsp sugar (= 1 tbsp + 1 tsp or 1 Australian tbsp)
16 g white miso paste
2 tsp cooking sake
1 tsp Japanese soy sauce
1.5 tsp ginger juice squeezed from grated fresh ginger

40 g beaten egg (slightly less than 1 egg)
8 tsp panko breadcrumbs (= 2 tbsp + 2 tsp or 2 Australian tbsp)

1 tsp white poppy seeds
1 tsp nori flakes

Equipment:
15 cm x 12 cm nagashi-bako or similar sized square cake tin, with or without removable bottom
30 cm x 30 cm square of baking paper
8 matsuba-gushi bamboo skewers or other small skewers, about 5 cm in length

1 Create a liner for the nagashi-bako or cake tin by placing it at the center of the baking paper. Make 4 cuts in the paper from the edge of the baking paper to the left hand corner of each side of the tin. Make folds along the base line, line the tin neatly and set aside.

2 Preheat oven to 220 degrees C if using gas, 230 degrees C if using electric. Meanwhile, thoroughly mix the chicken mince, sugar, miso paste, sake, Japanese soy sauce and ginger juice in a bowl, using your hand like a whisk. Add the weighed egg and panko breadcrumbs and briefly mix again. Pour into the prepared nagashi-bako or cake tin and flatten the surface. Remove the air by gently tapping the nagashi-bako or cake tin against a flat surface a few times. Sprinkle one half of the chicken mixture all over with the poppy seeds.

3 Bake for 15 min, or until a skewer comes out clean. Cover with aluminium foil and return to the oven with the heat off to steam for a further 5 min. Remove the chicken loaf from the tin and cut in half along the poppy seed line. Sprinkle the plain half all over with the nori flakes. Cut each half into 4 long "fan" shapes by cutting across the width of the halves on the diagonal. Push a matsuba-gushi or other small skewer into the short side of each triangle to make fans. This is the shape of a hagoita, or battledore, used in Japanese New Year "badminton".

(3) Kikka kabu (chrysanthemum flower-shaped pickled turnips)

The chrysanthemum is the symbol of Japan's Imperial Family
Time/Effort: *** Cost: * Flavour: *

You really do want something crisp and tangy to go with all the soft and sweet in the Osechi lineup. These white turnips fit the bill nicely, but are a bit too fiddly for my liking. It took me over 20 min to slice just four of these! And then I went and forgot to soak them in the brine that would soften them up so the "petals" could be opened! I think I'll go for something more colourful and less breakdown-inducing next time. Something like this, maybe...

4 small kabu (white turnips)

500 ml water
1 tbsp salt

For the sweet vinegar:
1-2 tbsp yuzu (citron) juice

1 tsp rice vinegar
2 tsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp dashi stock
8 dried red pepper rings

1 Cut roots and tops off kabu and peel. Place kabu on work top with the top side up. Cut horizontal and vertical lines 1-2 mm apart into each kabu to a depth of about 2/3 the height of the kabu. Take care not to cut all the way through. A disposable chopstick placed on either side of the kabu will help prevent your knife from going too far. Repeat with other 3 kabu. Cut an x into the bottom of each kabu, taking care not to cut into the cuts on the top side.

2 Mix the salt into the water and soak kabu, cut side down, in this solution for about 30 min. Remove kabu from salt-water bath and pat dry.

3 Mix yuzu (citron) juice, sugar, dashi stock, vinegar, salt and red pepper rings in a zip-topped plastic bag. Add kabu, kneed lightly and leave to pickle for at least 2 hours, turning from time to time.

4 To serve, gently squeeze pickling juice from kabu. Open up the chrysanthemum "petals" and top with 2 red pepper rings.

These three recipes are adapted from those I learned at ABC Cooking Studio last December.

Osechi tier 1

2010-01-04T00:10:00.019+09:00

I tried various recipes this year, only some of which I think I will repeat in New Years to come. I'm going to use a 3-star scale to remind me next time. The cost scale, naturally, reflects the cost of procuring ingredients/equipment in Japan.

(1) Kuromame (sweet black beans)

Symbolizes diligence (mame in Japanese)
Time/Effort: ** Cost: ** Flavour: ***

This is the same recipe as I used two years back (when last in Japan for New Year). I think I can improve it by using the pressure cooker to bring the beans to the soft point, so am making a note to myself now to that affect. I've still not managed to get any rusty nails, but all the Osechi cookbooks call for them, so they must have some affect. You could cook the beans in a cast iron pot, but I'm here to tell you that your beans will be lovely even if you don't.

(2) Tazukuri with pine nuts and cashews (Dried young anchovies with nuts in caramelized soy sauce)

Symbolizes an abundant harvest
Time/Effort: * Cost: *** Flavour: *

I was a little disappointed with this. The soy caramel totally overpowered the delicate flavour of the nuts. Given the cost of the nuts, I don't think I will repeat this one. Cheap sesame seeds are definitely the way to go. I think I may also not have let the caramel reduce enough; it was quite sticky. I'll keep looking for a tazukuri recipe, though. It's one of the easier Osechi dishes to make.

30 g gomame (dried young anchovies)
30 g pine nuts
40 g cashew nuts

2 1/3 tbsp soy sauce [Saffron: I would reduce this to 1-1 1/2 tbsp; it is very salty, otherwise]
2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp cooking sake
2 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp oil

1 Spread the gomame on a heatproof dish and heat in the microwave until crisp, about 1-2 min. Remove any powder or debris. Toast the pine nuts and cashews separately in a dry frying pan, swirling constantly to ensure they do not burn.

2 Add the soy sauce, sugar, cooking sake, mirin and oil to a frying pan and heat over a medium-strong flame. When the liquid starts to bubble turn the heat down to low and reduce to a thick caramel.

3 Add the toasted nuts and mix thoroughly.

4 Remove to a wide plate, separating any clumps as you go. Allow to cool.

(3) Matcha-iri kurikinton (Sweet potato with chestnuts and matcha green tea)

Symbolizes wealth
Time/Effort: *** Cost: *** Flavour: ***

The Young Man and I were very happy with the kurikinton we had 2 years ago. But I thought this recipe might better it yet. And it did. This is definitely my new go-to kurikinton (or kuriClinton, as the YM calls it, referring to Mrs and not Mr C; he's too young to know the latter!). The only catch is that matcha and jarred chestnuts are expensive, even in Japan. I reckon the ingredient cost of this one dish was about 1,600 yen (around US$16). There were no kuchinashi (gardenia pods, Japan's saffron!) in this recipe, but I think I will cook the sweet potatoes with a pod or two next time. The jarred chestnuts used in this recipe are skinned and coloured yellow with gardenia, also; little gold nuggets! To cut down on the sweetness, I used less sugar and didn't add the glucose syrup. I've given the original recipe below.

500 g sweet potato (peeled weight)
1/2 tsp yaki-myoban (burnt alum) or 1 tsp baking powder
100 g sugar

150 g sugar
pinch salt
1/2 cup syrup reserved from jar of sweetened chestnuts

2 tbsp mizuame (glucose syrup)
15-20 sweetened chestnuts from a jar, halved or quartered

1 tbsp matcha green tea powder
1 tsp sugar
1 tbsp boiling water

1 Peel and cut sweet potatoes into 2 cm-thick rounds. Soak in water for around 10 min. Change water and mix in yaki-myoban or baking powder. Leave to soak overnight to remove tackiness. Drain, rinse and place in a large pot. Pour in the sugar and just enough water to cover. Bring to the boil on a medium flame.

2 Boil until soft, about 12-15 min, then drain. Mash and allow to cool. Use a wooden spoon to push sweet potatoes through a sieve.

3 Return sweet potatoes to the pot and add the sugar, salt and chestnut syrup. Heat over a medium flame, stirring with a wooden spoon, until thickened. Once you can draw a line with the wooden spoon and see the bottom of the pot, add the mizuame (glucose syrup). Cook a further 1-2 min until glossy. Remove one third of mixture to a separate bowl.

4 Parboil the halved or quartered chestnuts in a small pot, then drain and stir into the sweet potatoes in the pot.

5 In a small bowl, mix the matcha, sugar and boiling water to a paste. Stir gently into the the remaining third of the sweet potatoes. Stir this mixture into the chestnut sweet potatoes, creating a marbled effect.

Adapted from recipes in Kihon no osechi to shogatsu no omotenashi (Basic Osechi and dishes for New Year's entertaining), Gakken Hit Mook, 2008 and 2010 editions

New Year in Japan: Osechi ryori

2010-01-02T23:17:00.014+09:00

Happy New Year!! This is the first post for 2010. Hopefully we will be a bit more "regular" than we were in 2009. Thank you for reading along. And, as always, please leave a comment if you have something to say. Happy cooking!

If you are used to a rowdy Scottish Hogmanay or a backyard New Year's Eve in sunny Australia, New Year in Japan can feel a bit sombre and forlorn. Japan's NY is a family event, spent quietly at home, snuggled up under the kotatsu, with a box of mandarin oranges to hand, and a round of, ahem, enigmatic New Year TV specials for company.

Unless, that is, you are the cook and you try to beat your Osechi-dishes-cooked personal best. Osechi is the traditional New Year fare of Japan, but its preparation is such a marathon at an already busy time, that very few women make it from scratch themselves anymore. The Osechi cookbooks I own recommend starting on December 26 so as not to be disappointed. Personally, I bought this and that throughout December, but only started cooking 2 days out. But I wasn't doing the full Osechi. Not all of the traditional dishes spell yummy to me.

Last time, I didn't have a special 3-tiered jubako box for Osechi. This time round, I got a nice little one with a bunny and plum blossom motif for next to nothing. The plastic ones are just as lovely as the real lacquered ones, much easier to care for and a fraction of the price! I only used 2 tiers this year, but if I ever get round to doing the full production, all three tiers will come into play. In which case, I will definitely start a day or two earlier (g).

My selections this year were the gochiso buri daikon and East-Japan ozoni broth from two years back. Plus jubako tier 1 goodies: kuromame (sweet black beans), tazukuri (dried fish in soy-sake caramel), matcha-iri kurikinton (sweet potatoes and chestnuts with matcha green tea); and tier 2 yummies: date-maki (rolled sweet omlette with fish cake), matsukaze-yaki (gingered chicken meatloaf on skewers) and kikka kabu (chrysanthemum-shaped pickled white turnip).

I got the lovely seasonal place mats from Takashimaya department store.

See the following posts for recipes.

Saffron

Orange khoresh

2010-01-02T23:16:00.010+09:00

When winter gets you down, it's good to know that there are always juicy citrus fruits to pep you up. On of my favourite things about the cooking of the Middle East and Iran and Morocco in particular is the combination of citrus and meat.

When I embarked on this voyage into the kitchens of far away places, one of the first things I cooked was a lamb and orange and lamb khoresh (Iranian stew) in Diana Henry's Crazy Water Pickled Lemons. It was a stew heady with the scents of "the Orient": orange flower water, cardamon and mint. Around that time, I started making some Iranian friends. But none of them had heard of an orange khoresh.

Exploring further, I made a lamb, spinach and orange khoresh from Najmieh Batmanglij's New Food of Life. Fabulous!

And now, a version with chicken from Margaret Shaida's The Legendary Cuisine of Persia. Of the three recipes I've tried, this is perhaps the simplest, but just as tasty.

I devoured Legendary Cuisine cover to cover when I got it, but this was my first attempt at any of the recipes. The prose is so lovely, a real paean to the culinary arts of Iran. In contrast with Najmieh-khanom's master work, Legendary Cuisine's recipes are pared back, home-style cooking that you probably could attempt on a weeknight. As such, Legendary Cuisine is a perfect partner to that work.

I reduced the meat in this recipe by half. Only because 2 kg of meat is rather too much for a family of two with too little freezer space as it is. Although you could easily cook this in a pressure cooker, the carrots need pan-frying for almost half an hour, so there is not too much point unless you start with the carrots.

Note that you will be peeling the zest of three oranges. The easiest way to do this is with a vegetable peeler. The prepared peel is then brought to the boil in three changes of water to remove its bitterness. Orange peel prepared in this way keeps very well in the freezer, so it is worth doing extra. I sometimes throw some in with some garlic stir-fried cabbage for an easy side veggie. You can also use it in citrus vinaigrette.

It is worth using the saffron in this recipe. It adds a magical note to this stew. Serve with steamed white rice.

Orange khoresh

Serves 4

1 kg chicken thighs, cut into quarters
2 large onions, finely sliced
1 tsp cinnamon
3 oranges (Seville for preference)
3 large carrots
small pinch saffron threads, ground with a little sugar or salt, and steeped in 1 tbsp boiling water
juice of 1 lemon, or 2 tbsp sugar if using Seville oranges
salt and pepper

2 tsp pistachio slivers
2 tsp almond slivers

1 Wash the chicken pieces and pat dry. In a large pot, heat a little oil and fry the chicken until nicely browned. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

2 In the same pot, heat a little more oil and fry the onions until soft and golden brown. Stir in the cinnamon, add the chicken and enough water to cover. Cover and simmer gently for 30 min.

3 Scrub the oranges with detergent, rinse well and pat dry. Peel thinly (with a vegetable peeper) and cut skin into julienne strips. Put in a small pot, cover with water, bring to the boil and drain. Repeat twice more and leave to drain.

4 Peel the carrots and cut into julienne strips. In a large frying pan, heat a little oil and fry carrots for around 20 minutes then add to the stew with the orange zest. Simmer for a further 25 min.

5 With a sharp knife, remove the pith from the oranges and the skin from the segments.

6 A few minutes before serving, stir in the saffron water and the lemon juice (or sugar if using Seville oranges) and add the orange segments, reserving a few to garnish

7 Simmer for a minute or two and dish up in a warm bowl. Garnish with almond and pistachio slivers if desired and serve with plain white rice.

Enjoy!

Recipe of the year: Rick Stein's Hanoi chicken noodle soup with bok choi

2009-12-11T12:59:00.011+09:00

My knowledge of Vietnamese food does not extend much beyond the pho joints along the strip in Richmond, Melbourne, Australia. But what you get there is a vast basin of rice noodles in a steaming, clean, delicately flavoured soup, topped with meat, chicken, or sometimes both, and enough bean shoots, lemon, chilli, Vietnamese basil and mint garnishes on the side to make a meal in itself. It is invariably good, and always cheap. Wouldn't it be great to be able to make pho here in Japan, where Vietnamese food is often so-so and invariably expensive??

I found a fantastic-sounding recipe on Andrea Nguyen's brilliant Vietnamese food blog way back, but it looked like it might be a weekend project, and I never quite got round to it. There is a recipe for beef pho in Les Huynh's Blue Ginger: The Colours and Flavours of Asia, but it calls for about 2 kg of beef, which seems a little extravagant, at least when you live in Japan. So you can imagine how happy I was so happy to find a Vietnamese chicken noodle recipe from Rick Stein that could be made in roughly an hour (most of which is waiting for the chicken to cool). If you've been reading along, you'll know that I am quite enamoured of late with Rick's work on Asian cuisines. And this recipe is a real corker. In fact, it made such an impression on me that I'm naming it my recipe of the year!

I have adapted Rick's recipe, which was for a Hanoi-style bowl-of-joy, to make it more closely resemble the "true" Melbourne pho experience. Thus, basil is in and coriander leaves out (in deference to the Young Man). I left the bok choi in, and like this addition. Also, Rick had 300 g of rice noodles feeding 6 people. I think 100 g per person is maybe more like it, and, with Japanese-sized ramen bowls, I reckon the broth is enough for 4. We might just be greedy, though (g). Certainly, we did have some chicken left over, but that is never a problem, is it?

The excerpt of Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey where I found the recipe did not give instructions for nuoc cham, that delicious all-purpose Vietnamese sauce that will take your bowl of soup right into the stratosphere. I use the one in Les' Blue Ginger, above, minus the water in this instance, as it is to go into soup. Nuoc cham explodes on the tongue with every taste sensation. Use more or less chilli and garlic to suit your taste. Note that this portion of the recipe uses Australian tablespoons which are 20 ml, or 1 non-Australian tbsp plus 1 tsp. You will probably have some left over. Which would be a great excuse for making this.

Hanoi chicken noodle soup with bok choi

Serves 4

A 1.2 kg chicken
25 g peeled ginger, coarsely chopped
12 spring onions, trimmed and halved
20 g garlic, sliced (around 5 cloves)
2 star anise
10 cm cinnamon stick
20 g dried shrimp
1/2 tsp black peppercorns
450 g bok choi [Saffron: in Japan, 2 packets of chingensai]
400 g 1 cm-wide flat rice noodles [S: I used a thinner variety]
4 tbsp fish sauce

Garnishes
100 g bean shoots
Large handful basil
20 g mint leaves
1 small red chilli, sliced very thinly [optional]
Lemon quarters

Nuoc cham to serve (Note: 1 tbsp = 20 ml)
2 long red chillies, deseeded and roughly chopped [or to taste]
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 tbsp shaved palm sugar
2 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 tbsp rice vinegar

(3 tbsp water)

1 Put the chicken, ginger, 8 of the spring onions, garlic, star anise, cinnamon, dried shrimp, peppercorns and 1/2 tsp salt into a deep pan in which the chicken fits quite snugly. Cover with 2 l of water. Bring to the boil, skimming off any scum as it rises, then lower the heat, cover and leave to gently simmer for 20 min. Turn off the heat and leave to cool for 40 min.

2 Separate the stalks from the leaves of the bok choi and finely shred them lengthways. Cut the leaves across into 3 cm-wide pieces. Slice the remaining 4 spring onions finely.

3 Lift the cooled chicken onto a plate and leave to cool. Drain the stock into a clean pan and discard all the flavourings except the shrimp. Skin the chicken, pull the meat from the bones and break it into chunky pieces.

4 Meanwhile, make nuoc cham. Pound chillies and garlic into a smooth paste with a mortar and pestle. Place in a clean jar and add remaining ingredients. Put the lid on and shake until well blended. Nuoc cham will keep in the fridge for around a week.

5 Bring a pan of unsalted water to the boil. Add the noodles, turn off the heat, cover and leave to soak for 10 min or until tender.

6 Bring the stock back to the boil, add the bok choi stalks and simmer for 2 min, add the bok choi leaves and cook for a further 2 min. Then stir in the fish sauce.

7 Drain the noodles and divide among 4 large, deep noodle bowls. Top with cooked chicken, bean shoots, reserved shrimp, remaining spring onions, basil and mint leaves. Ladle the steaming hot broth and bok choi over the top and serve with the nuoc cham, lemon quarters and chilli on the side.

Enjoy!

Harumi's autumnal Japan 3: Spinachi and shimeji shiroae

2009-10-14T12:49:00.006+09:00

Here's another of Kurihara Harumi's autumn delights from Haru-mi magazine. It is a kind of spinach and fungi salad dressed with tofu and sesame. Packing two veggies, a protein and sesame, this is the kind of cooking which earned Japanese cuisine its sometimes undeserved ;) reputation for healthiness.

Note, though, that this one dish does not dinner make. I would suggest a meat dish and another veggie side or soup, maybe even from this "autumnal Japan" series, plus steamed rice if you want an authentic Japanese restaurant "set menu" effect.

If you can't get hold of shimeji mushrooms, try any other variety. As before, usukuchi soy sauce is preferred here for its lighter color (shiroae literally means "white-dressed", after all). It is not essential, though, so use regular Japanese soy sauce if that is what you have.

Spinach and shimeji shiroae

Serves 4 as a side dish with other Japanese foods and rice

1 block of silken tofu (320 g)
1 pack shimeji mushrooms
1/2 tbsp cooking sake
1 tbsp mirin
1 tbsp usukuchi soy sauce
1 buch spinach (200 g)
2 tbsp sesame paste [S: tahini will do]
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
pinch of salt

1 Wrap tofu in a paper towel and weigh it down for 10 min to remove the water. Aim to have the tofu weigh about 40% less after this process.

2 Remove the base of the shimeji, separate the fungi and slice in half across the middle.

3 In a small saucepan, bring the cooking sake, mirin and usukuchi soy sauce to the boil. Add the shimeji and cook until all the liquid is gone, stirring constantly.

4 Divide the spinach into leaves and stems and slice into 2 cm lengths. Blanch quickly in boiling water, stems first, drain then revive in cold water. Wring out as much water as possible.

5 Pat the tofu dry and blend it to a pulp in a bowl. Add the sesame paste, sugar and salt, and blend well.

6 Add the shimeji and spinach and mix thoroughly. Adjust the seasoning, if necessary.

Enjoy!

Harumi's autumnal Japan 2: Hearty shiitake and ginger broth

2009-10-14T12:48:00.008+09:00

Continuing with selections from Haru-mi magazine, here is a hearty shiitake mushroom and ginger broth with the surprising addition of minced chicken. Besides citrus, especially my beloved lemons, I don't think there's a flavour that does it for me as much as ginger. I really love the stuff. You might not have thought about putting it in soup before, but it really warming. This this broth will take you right through to winter.

At my place, dashi is made from bought "dashi packs"--teabag-like sachets that you just add to cold water, bring to the boil and leave to steep off the heat for a couple of minutes. Granulated dashi is also available but as it is already seasoned, you may need to exercise caution with the soy/salt if you use the granules instead. At a push, I suppose a chicken stock cube (and much reworking of the soy sauce) may also work, but the flavour profile would be totally different.

Usukuchi soy sauce (meaning "light flavoured") is a bit of a misnomer. The salt content is actually higher than regular Japanese soy, but the colour is lighter, so it is used when dark colouring is not desired. You are probably not going to want to buy a bottle just for this recipe, so go ahead and use regular Japanese soy. I won't tell if you don't.

Katakuriko is dogtooth violet starch powder in English, apparently (no, I've never heard of it either!). Cornstarch would work just as well. You want to just take the "liquidity" off the broth, not turn it into a sauce, so use with caution (g).

Hearty shiitake and ginger broth

Serves 4

100 g chicken mince
2 dried shiitake
1 knob of fresh ginger [S: or to taste]
4 cups (800 ml) dashi
2 tbsp mirin
2 tbsp usukuchi soy sauce [S: or regular Japanese soy sauce]
1 tbsp cooking sake
1/3 tsp salt [S: optional]
2 tsp katakuriko dissolved in 2 tsp water

1 Rinse shiitake and reconstitute in water. Gently squeeze out most of the water, then cut off the stalks and slice the top into 1 mm strips. Peel the fresh ginger and slice into matchsticks about 3 cm long.

2 In a saucepan, bring the dashi, mirin, usukushi soy sauce, sake and salt (if using) to the boil.

3 Place the minced chicken in a medium bowl. Pour 1 cup of the dashi mixture over the chicken, while quickly breaking up the meat with cooking chopsticks or a wooden spoon.

4 Retur the chicken-dashi mixture to the saucepan and return to the boil, removing the scum that forms. Add the sliced shiitake and ginger and cook for 1 min.

5 Thicken the soup with the katakuriko and water, then ladle into warmed bowls.

Enjoy!

Harumi's autumnal Japan 1: Gingered pork

2009-10-14T12:46:00.006+09:00

I had some spare time when the Young Man was otherwise occupied and had a wander to the many local bookshops to find a seasonal Japanese "cookmook" I'd seen advertised in a magazine while waiting at the dentist's.

It's a funny thing, but most of the small book stockists in my area only have trashy weeklies, dodgy manga and the inevitable Back Section. Not really my kinds of places, which is probably why cooking mook pickings were also slim. Surprisingly, I found the advertised mook at the little bookshop in front of my local train station. It looked so-so, so I went with Haru-mi, the eponymous title by Kurihara Harumi, the doyenne of Japanese cooking. Think of her as Japan's answer to Martha.

I've said before that cooking Japanese on weeknights can be quite stressful. Ingredient lists tend to be long, recipes full of intricate steps, and worse, you need several such dishes to make one meal. There are not any short-cuts with that one, but this little dish is easy to put together and coordinate with others. It is the most basic version of the Japanese classic shoga-yaki I have yet to come across.

In Japan, wafer-thin slices of meat are sold at any supermarket. Meat has always been a luxury, and this is one way to make a little go further. The easiest way to replicate this would be to use your sharpest knife to shave slices off a block of semi-frozen meat. Luckily you don't need much. On which note, notice that 300 g of meat serves 4 people. Adjust accordingly if Japanese appetites are not found at your place.

Fresh ginger is essential to the recipe, and powdered ginger is not a substitute. It's fresh, zestiness is a good foil for the soy and mirin. A ceramic oroshigane grater like the ones here is what you need to get the ginger slush, but the finest side of a box grater will do as well. The Japanese herb shiso (aka ooba) (perilla) is not necessary here. If you don't have any, some thinly sliced basil would work, or just leave the cabbage plain to soak up the juices.

Harumi's gingered pork

Serves 4

300 g thinly sliced pork shoulder
3 tbsp soy sauce
3 tbsp mirin
1/2 - 1 tbsp fresh ginger finely grated to a slush
1 tbsp vegetable oil

To garnish
shredded cabbage
3 shiso leaves, shredded finely (optional)

1 In a small bowl, mix the soy sauce, mirin and ginger slush. Set aside until ready to cook the pork.

2 Immediately before frying, spread out pork slices in a single layer and cover with the soy sauce mixture.

3 Heat the vegetable oil in a frying pan. Take the pork out of the soy mix and fry quickly on both sides.

4 Mix the shredded cabbage and shiso and create a bed on a small dish. Place the cooked pork on top and serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Djaj bil karmous wal joz: Moroccan tagine of chicken, figs and walnuts

2009-10-06T12:45:00.009+09:00

Always luscious, well herbed and spiced, and often, though not here, featuring my beloved lemon, Moroccan food is an all-time favourite at the Saffron household. But even given all that, this dish is nothing short of alchemy.

It has just a handful of ingredients and only a smidgen of spice, and cooks up in just over 40 minutes. Oh, but the result!

With warm spices cinnamon and ginger, honey and caramelized figs, you might expect this braise to on the sweet side. Instead, it is deeply savoury and autumnal, especially with the added crunch of walnuts. Using little water, this would also be perfect to make in an actual tagine, if you are lucky enough to own one. (I am holding off on getting one, as the Saffron kitchen is already groaning under the weight of too much foodie paraphernalia.)

We had this with totally inauthentic rice for the sake of speed, but I'd love to do it again with a nice fruited and nutted couscous.

The original recipe is from Claudia Roden's Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey and Lebanon, which sometimes gets a bit overlooked in my collection, standing alongside Claudia's major works A New Book of Middle Eastern Food and The Book of Jewish Food.

Moroccan tagine of chicken, figs and walnuts

25 g butter
1 tbsp sunflower oil
2 large onions
1 tsp ground ginger
good pinch saffron threads
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 chicken, jointed
salt & black pepper
1-1 1/2 tbsp clear honey
50 g walnut halves
4-8 fresh figs, peeled, or washed, and cut in half (4 in case of black ones, 8 in case of little green ones)
Squeeze of 1 lemon
Castor sugar

1 Heat butter and oil in a large pan. Put in the onions, cover and let them soften slowly over a medium heat, stirring from time to time. When they begin to colour, stir in the ginger, saffron and cinnamon. Put in the chicken pieces, season with salt and pepper, and turn to brown them lightly all over.

2 Add 250 ml water and cook, covered, turning the chicken pieces over at least once. Lift out the breasts when they are done, after about 15-20 min, and put them on one side. Lift out the remaining chicken pieces about 25 min later, when the are very tender.

3 Let the onions reduce to a rich brown sauce. Stir in the honey and taste to make sure you have enough salt to balance the sweetness and enough pepper to mitigate it. Add walnuts.

4 Meanwhile, sprinkle fig halves with a little lemon juice and a little castor sugar, and put them under the grill for a few minutes to barely caramelize. Serve them as a garnish on top of the chicken pieces.

Enjoy!

Chef Wan's Malaysian prawn and noodle salad

2009-10-06T12:44:00.009+09:00

Though he'd not been on my radar before then, Rick Stein was suddenly everywhere this summer.

This recipe is from an excerpt from Rick Stein's Far Eastern Odyssey in the September 2009 edition of Sainsbury's Magazine, which I picked up at a Sainsbury's supermarket in Glasgow during our trip. And what a great magazine it is! It was 1.40 GBP (around 210 yen) and chock full of recipes from my favourite British food writers. The only let down for me was seeing Diana Henry, who was so instrumental in sparking this global food journey I'm on with Crazy Water Pickled Lemons, spruiking the supermarket's wares. Still, we gotta do what we gotta do, I suppose. Incidentally, it is actually possible to subscribe to SM, though they don't make their subscription site easy to find. For Japan, it's 59 GBP for 12 issues (1 year). Tempting, very tempting...

But back to this recipe. It can be summed up in two words: Easy and Yum! It's a no-brainer.

You will need some Thai/Malaysian groceries, though, so plan ahead. I didn't have any dried shrimp, the last lot having been forgotten at the back of the fridge and looking slightly dodgy. I substituted prawn/shrimp paste. This is probably the less easy to find ingredient, but I'm all about weird ingredients. A little goes a long way. If you seek it out, you'll know from the aroma coming from the sealed jar whether it is going to be for you. Now that I've opened mine, I suppose I'll need to buy that Thai cookbook I've been lusting over... (G)

This substitution, plus the reduction in the chilli I had to make in order to feed this to the Young Man, made my sauce more like a soup. It tasted fab anyway, but next time I will deseed the tomatoes and see how that goes.

Chef Wan's Malaysian prawn and noodle salad

125 g dried rice noodles
few drops vegetable oil
300 g large, cooked prawns [Saffron: for preference; I used smaller ones]
1 medium onion, thinly sliced
large handful of mixed coriander leaves, mint leaves and chives, torn
100 g roasted peanuts, coarsely chopped
1 stem lemongrass, outer leaves removed and core finely chopped
juice of 2 limes
3 tbsp Thai fish sauce

For the sauce
1 red chilli, deseeded and thinly sliced
2 fat cloves garlic, roughly chopped
1/2 tsp Thai prawn paste [S: in lieu of 25 g dried shrimp, soaked in hot water for 30 min], optional
3 ripe tomatoes, deseeded and sliced
4 tbsp palm sugar

1 Bring a pan of unsalted water to the boil. Meanwhile, put the ingredients for the sauce into a food processor or blender and grind, using the pulse button, into a coarse, wet paste [S: it will be more like a soup if you follow my method].

2 Drop the noodles into the pan of boiling water, remove from the heat and leave to soak for 1 1/2 min, or until just tender. [The timing will depend on the thickness of the noodles.] Don't overcook them as they will soften a little more in the salad later on. Drain and refresh under cold water. Toss with a few drops of vegetable oil to stop the strands sticking together, then leave in a colander to drain really well.

3 Put the cooked noodles into a bowl and add the sauce, followed by the other ingredients one by one, mixing them briefly before adding the next, easing the noodle strands apart as you do so, as they have a tendency to stick together in one clump. Serve immediately.

Enjoy!

Rick Stein's Bangladeshi eggplant curry with tomatoes, ginger and fennel seeds

2009-10-01T14:55:00.014+09:00

It's been a while between posts. Sorry to anyone who's opened up to the not-so-photogenic noodles below these last 2 months.

It's not that I took a break from cooking, more that life got very busy, then the Young Man and I took a two-week trip to the Old Country--Scotland, home of all manner of unhealthy eats that it is perhaps good that we don't have on a regular basis (g). Mid-trip, I managed to break my ever trusty Canon digital camera, which though quickly replaced by a swanky new Ricoh on our return to Japan, is yet to produce any blog piccies due to SD card incompatibility issues. Sigh.

But we are back now!

This is a tasty and really easy curry that was in an excerpt from Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey on the Guardian website (no longer available due to an expired copyright). I'd not really come across the recipes of British food personality Rick Stein before. Mainly because he's been busy winning awards for seafood cookery books. But after this curry, and a toovar dal with tamarind, tomatoes and curry leaves that is just like one my dear Indian friend Sa makes, I'll be keeping an eye out for more on the East from him.

If you will pardon a "language policing" moment, I was intrigued by the "Far Eastern" in the title. To my (Australian) sensibilities, though slightly old-fashioned, the term definitely conjures up the China-Korea-Japan corner of Asia. But perhaps it was an editorial decision, as Rick himself mentions the oddness of "Far Eastern" in the Meet the Author video at the Amazon link above. In actual fact, the book covers South-East Asia (no China-Korea-Japan!) + Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. A book-naming conundrum, indeed!

This curry is a cinch but really packs flavour. Make some quick before the end of the eggplant season!

I forgot to write down how many cloves of garlic and what size piece of ginger was needed, but will update the recipe when I make it again, as I think most will be like me and not want to bother weighing these. I used Japanese eggplants, which weigh about 100 g each.

The technique of brushing the eggplant halves with oil rather than heating it up in the pan is a good one. Eggplants are oil-sucking demons!

Bangladeshi eggplant curry with tomatoes, ginger and fennel seeds

Serves 4

600 g eggplants, ideally Asian finger eggplants
150 ml vegetable oil
40 g peeled ginger, roughly chopped
40 g garlic, roughly chopped
2 green cayenne chillies, finely chopped
2 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp fennel seeds
1 tbsp freshly ground coriander seeds
1/2 tsp turmeric powder
400 g chopped tomatoes, fresh or from a can
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 tbsp each of chopped fresh coriander and mint

1 Top and tail the eggplants and cut in half lengthways. If using larger Mediterranean-style eggplants, cut each one across in half and then each piece lengthways into 6–8 wedges. Toss them with ½ tsp salt and set aside in a colander for 10 min.

2 Heat a large frying pan over a high heat. Pour the oil into a shallow dish. Brush the aubergine pieces, a few at a time, with oil, put them in the frying pan and cook for 3–4 min on each side until richly browned. Cooking the eggplants in this way helps prevent them from absorbing too much oil, which would make the finished dish greasy. Set aside in a bowl and repeat with the remaining eggplants.

3 Put the ginger, garlic and chilli into a mini food processor with 2–3 tbsp water and whizz to a smooth paste.

4 Put 2 tbsp of the remaining oil into the frying pan and add the fennel and cumin seeds. Leave them to sizzle for a few seconds, then add the ginger and garlic paste and leave this to fry for a further 2-3 min. Add the coriander and turmeric, fry for 1 min and then add the tomatoes, black pepper, 3 tbsp water and ½ tbsp salt. Cover and leave to simmer for 8–10 min until reduced and thickened slightly. Return the fried eggplant slices to the pan and stir well to coat in the sauce. Simmer for five minutes, then stir in the fresh coriander and mint and serve.

Enjoy!

Kabaklama: Turkish autumn lamb stew with pumpkin, lemon and mint

2009-09-28T12:40:00.005+09:00

Here is a wonderfully rich and savoury stew from Paula Wolfert's The Cooking of the Eastern Mediterranean. A look at the ingredients list confirms the simplicity of this dish, but not the complexity of the flavour. The decisive element is the aromatic oil "flourish," redolent with mint, pepper and chilli (if you can get away with it (g)), at the end. Don't skip this step--it really takes this stew into sublime territory!

I was telling my dear friend Se, who hails from Konya, Turkey, about this stew, and she quizzed me on the inclusion of pumpkin. In Turkish, kabak means either zucchini or pumpkin, with the former the far more commonly used ingredient. (At least in savories; dear Se was actually serving up a simmered pumpkin dessert when she mentioned this.) Perhaps the writer was mistaken?

Unusually, Paula doesn't give much information about the source of this particular recipe, but I have complete trust in her research. Her recipes are usually spot on. And as a translator myself, I say that if this is the quality of food you get from a possible mistranslation, then bring them on!

I have yet to get a hold of Turkish red pepper paste (biber salcasi) here in Japan, so substituted the equivalent of tomato paste and as much cayenne as I thought I could get away with. I adjusted Paula's recipe for the pressure cooker. If you don't have one, the meat will take at least double the time to cook in step 2.

Turkish autumn lamb stew with pumpkin, lemon and mint

45 g lean shoulder of lamb cut int 2.5 cm cubes and including all bones
1 1/4 tsp freshly ground back pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
1 cup chopped onion (1 large onion)
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 tbsp pepper paste [Saffron: or substitute extra tomato paste]
1 1/2 tsp minced garlic (around 2 coves
1 1/2 cooked chickpeas
1 large ripe tomato peeled seeded and chopped
6 cups pumpkin peeled (around 1kg [S: I used a mix of regular and butternut pumpkin]
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp fresh lemon juice (around 2 lemons)
Pinch of Aleppo pepper or chilli or to taste

1 Trim the meat of excess fat and sprinkle with half the back pepper. Heat 2 tbsp of oil in a medium-large pressure cooker over medium heat. Add the meat and cook, stirring, until all moisture evaporates, abut 7 min. Add the onion and cook stirring for 1o min.

2 Add the tomato and pepper pastes and cook stirring for 5 min. Add 1 1/2 cups water, cover and bring to pressure. Cook under low pressure for 25 min, or until the meat is tender.

3 Add the garlic chickpeas, tomatoes, pumpkin and salt. Add water to barely cover contents. Cover and cook (without pressure) until the pumpkin is tender, about 15 min. If chickpeas are very tender, add them right at the end.

4 Stir in the lemon juice and remove from heat.

5 Heat the remaining 1 tbsp of olive oil in a small pan until sizzling; add the mint, red pepper and remaining 3/4 tsp back pepper, and stir for an instant. Swirl the oil over the stew, stir once, and serve hot.

Enjoy!

Chilled tan-tan men

2009-07-24T12:41:00.012+09:00

I've decided not to continue with my cooking classes at ABC Cooking Studio, despite quite a bit of arm-twisting in March, when they wanted me to sign up for an additional year of their new offerings, without first telling us what those might be. I think I made the right decision, as it turns out that the Japanese dish offerings, which were my main reason for taking the classes to begin with, would be reduced, and those they did present would tend to be of a more basic nature. That's the reason I didn't take a class in June, and why I am taking two this month to finish off the last of my prepaid lessons before they expire at the end of the month.

As it turns out, ABC are doing chilled tan-tan men, something I would really like to have done, NEXT month. Typical, really (g). Never fear. I had a look round the net for a recipe, and found the one I translated below on a fan site for the Japanese TV program Danshi Gohan (meals for men).

If you've been reading along, you'll know that I've already featured one recipe for tan-tan men, that great Japanese take on a spicy mince-topped noodle dish from Sichuan, China, on S&L. This recipe is a totally different beast, and not just because it is chilled (a popular presentation for noodles in the hot and sticky Japanese summer). Unlike the earlier version, sesame is quite predominant in this recipe. In seed, oil and paste form!

Highly nutritious, sesame is used extensively in Japanese cooking. There are white and black versions of both seeds and paste. White ones are used in this recipe. If you can't get Japanese sesame paste (or Chinese zhima jiang), you can always substitute tahini. The taste will be slightly different as, unlike the Japanese version, tahini is made from un-toasted sesame seeds. It will still be delicious, I promise.

Negi (Japanese leeks) and nira (garlic chives) may also be problematic sourcing in other countries. Western leeks are not a good substitute for negi, but at a pinch, you could use the white innermost core (Japanese leeks are only around 2 cm in diameter), or substitute finely sliced spring onions. Nira is not absolutely essential, you could easily garnish with some nice cooked spinach or bok choi, more spring onions or any other green thing you fancy.

The soup in this rendering strikes just the right balance between lightness and flavour for a summer's dish. The flavour comes from a shelfful of lovely condiments. If you don't make a lot of Japanese or Chinese food, you might not have some of these, but they are all pretty much staples in any Japanese kitchen. Just in case, you'll definitely want to read the recipe before attempting this!

Also, the recipe is for two, so don't forget to scale up if you've got more mouths to feed. Oh, and this makes a great lunch the next day. I took the cooked noodles-and-meat topping and soup in separate (leak proof!) containers and supped contentedly, catching up on news of the new Iranian revolution, at my desk at work.

Chilled tan-tan men

Serves 2

2 single-serve packs of fresh Chinese noodles

For the soup
500 ml cold water
3 tbsp white sesame paste (or tahini)
2 tbsp toasted white sesame seeds, roughly ground
1.5 tbsp EACH miso paste, oyster sauce, rice vinegar
1 tbsp EACH sugar, sesame oil, soy sauce
1-2 tsp tobanjan (douban jiang in Chinese) or other chilli-garlic paste, or to taste (optional)

For the meat topping
120 g minced pork
10 cm negi Japanese leek, very finely diced [S: or 2 tbsp finely sliced spring onions]
2 cloves garlic, very finely diced
1 knob fresh ginger, as big as your thumb, very finely diced
0.5 tbsp sesame oil
1-2 tbsp toasted white sesame seeds, roughly ground
1 tbsp EACH cooking sake, soy sauce and oyster sauce
Salt and pepper

To serve
Nira (garlic chives), snipped
Rayu (layou in Chinese) chilli oil

1. Prepare the soup. Mix white sesame paste, lightly ground sesame seeds, and miso paste in a large bowl, then gradually add the water, stirring until well blended. Add remaining soup ingredients and stir well. Check the seasoning, and adjust if necessary. Cover with cling wrap and refrigerate until needed.

2 Heat sesame oil in a frying pan over medium heat. Stir-fry the Japanese leek, ginger and garlic until soft. Add the minced pork and break up with a wooden spoon. Once browned all over, add the sake, then the soy sauce, oyster sauce and lightly ground white sesame seeds. Check the seasoning and add salt and pepper to taste.

3 Bring a large pot of water to the boil and cook the noodles according to the package directions (typically for 1.5-2 minutes), drain and plunge immediately into ice cold water to cool.

4 Once cool, drain the noodles and arrange in two large noodle bowls. Pour half of the soup into each bowl, top with half the meat topping and garnish with garlic chives.

Enjoy!

Just the thing for the mantlepiece: A square watermelon

2009-07-24T12:40:00.005+09:00

Snapped in a Shibuya, Tokyo fruit shop window

In Japan, fruit is a favourite gift when visiting friends' homes, people in hospital and during the summer gift-giving season called Ochugen. If fruit is given, it is usually beautifully perfect specimens costing rather a lot more than one would normally pay when buying for oneself. And it should taste fantastic.

Then again, you might just choose a square watermelon instead! For just 15,000 yen (over US$150) you too can have a melon that fits in a box without rattling around. Just don't get your hopes up about the taste of such a rarefied melon. There's a disclaimer specifically disavowing any flavour guarantee.

Just what you always wanted, eh?

Saffron

Cooking class 11: Oil free cooking

2009-07-24T12:37:00.016+09:00

For my next-to-last cooking class at ABC, the theme was oil-free cooking. On the menu were fluffy tofu-chicken balls topped with onsen tamago ("hot spring eggs", which are cooked slowly at a low temperature so the yolk sets and the white is runny; a soft-boiled egg in reverse) on a bed of rice with 16 grains, three salads, chicken soup made with the cooking water from the chicken balls and an acerola drink with aloe vera.

The main dish of tofu-chicken balls was a take on the yakitori favourite tsukune chicken balls, but simmered rather than grilled. Served with a sweet soya sauce based dressing, the runny egg and strands of nori, which look a little bedraggled in my photo :(, the dish was very tasty.

I'd seen the little bags of mixed grains that you cook together with white rice to boost nutrients and flavour, but never bought any as they can be pricey. Having tried it now, I think I might just get myself a bag as, aside from flavour and nutrition, I really liked the different textures. Overall, this was top nosh.

I don't know what the 16 grains are, but a similar thing, containing glutinous proso millet, pressed barley, red rice, purple rice, hulled barley, soybean, green soybean, azuki bean, germinated brown rice, pressed glutinous barley, sorghum, foxtail millet, Japanese barnyard millet, Job's tears and amaranth, is on sale at Amazon under the name "16-Grain Rice Booster".

ABC often offers classes that put the same ingredients in multiple uses. They call it "eco-cooking". Here tofu got the workout, appearing not only in the chicken balls, but also in the dressings for two of the three salads: gobo (burdock) salad with tofu dressing, mixed bean salad with curry-tofu dressing and mizuna and smallfry with ginger dressing. I especially liked the soy-vinegar-ginger dressing.

The acerola juice with aloe was a bit nondescript to me (I like my tart juices full on, not sweetened into nothingness). The addition of some ginger from the salad livelied it up a bit, and gave my class mates something to gawp at (g).

Macrobiotic apple crumble cake

2009-07-13T12:38:00.020+09:00

I am not one of the world's best bakers. In fact, I very rarely make anything resembling dessert except on very special occasions. Despite all this, I seem to have surrounded myself with some of the world's biggest sweet tooths, who have all learned to bring dessert with them when they visit, as they know they'll probably miss out otherwise (g).

And one, dear A, brought this cake, which while lush with apple and rich with a spicy crumble topping, is not overly sweet, and quite suitable for the non-sweet tooths among us.

Being macrobiotic, there are some unusual things about this recipe, which comes from Nakashima Shiho's Mocchiri chiffon sakkuri cookie dosshiri cake (Springy chiffon cakes, crunchy cookies, substantial cakes).

For one, it is made with tensaito, or beet sugar, which has lots of lovely minerals, is less sweet and said to be much healthier than refined sugar. Tensaito might be hard to come across outside Japan, but here it was right with the other sugars, and probably had been forever, I'd just never noticed it before (not being much of a baker... (g)). I don't suppose it would matter if you used any other kind of unrefined sugar if tensaito is not available. I won't tell if you don't.

Next, the fat in the cake is not butter or margarine, but the supposedly healthier rapeseed oil or canola oil.

And if all that novelty wasn't enough, a bain-marie is used when you whip the eggs! The original Japanese recipe just said to use a "water bath", so I improvised with a stainless steel bowl over a pot of boiling water. Since you will have a hand-held mixer whirring away on high when you do this, use common sense and put the bain-marie set up on a flat surface.

This might just be the strangest cake recipe I've come across, but I am quite enamoured with this results. And it made an unusual birthday/farewell cake for my dear Indian friend Sm, who was off back to India for 6 months. Too bad he came to our little farewell bash already laden with lots of leftover cakes from his work farewell. These kept us fed for the next two days. Waaay more sweetness than we in the Saffron household are use to!

Macrobiotic apple crumble cake

140 g plain flour

2 medium eggs
50 g maple sugar
60 ml rapeseed or canola oil

For the apple jam
2 large apples, peeled, cored and roughly chopped
2 tbsp tensaito (beet sugar)

2 tbsp raisins, plumped up in rum for 1 day

For the crumble
50 g plain flour
50 g walnuts, chopped fairly fine
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp rapeseed or canola oil
1 tbsp maple syrup

1 Lightly oil and line an 18 cm spring form cake tin with greaseproof paper.

2 Make the apple jam. Place apple pieces in a small pan and sprinkle the tensaito/beet sugar over the top. Place over medium heat. Once the apples begin to release their juice, turn the heat up to high and cook until the apples begin to lose their shape and all the liquid has evaporated. Remove from heat and allow to cool.

3 Make the crumble. Place the flour, chopped walnuts and cinnamon in a small bowl. Stir a few times, then stir in the rapeseed or canola oil and the maple syrup. Stir until the mixture becomes crumbly.

3 Preheat the oven to 170 degrees C (160 if using gas).

4 Bring a large saucepan half filled with water to a rolling boil and turn off the heat. In a large, heatproof bowl that will fit neatly into the saucepan, beat the eggs and maple sugar with an electric mixer on low speed. Place the bowl on top of the saucepan of hot water and continue to beat at high speed.

5 Once the egg-sugar mixture comes to body temperature, remove the bowl from the saucepan. Continue to whip until stiff peaks form.

6 Turn the mixer down to low and gradually beat in the rapeseed or canola oil. With a rubber spatula, gently fold in the cooled apple jam and rum raisins.

7 Sift the four into the bowl and fold in gently with the rubber spatula. Pour into the prepared cake tin, spread the crumble mixture evenly over the top, and bake for 40 min, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Enjoy!

Allegra's bigger than big chicken, pumpkin & borlotti beans

2009-07-13T12:37:00.010+09:00

I've been watching British chef Allegra McEvedy at the Guardian for some time. When her book Leon: Ingredients and Recipes, came out, the Guardian did a series of excerpts, here, here and here and this recipe. Allegra's food is a lot like the woman (to judge by the blurb she gets in the first excerpt, above): bold, feisty and full of zest. I've made the chilli con carne, the meatballs and now this pumpkin, bean and chicken medley, and they've all been great. Good honest grub, with lots of inspiration from the places where food is sustenance for more than just the stomach. The sort of places that I visit a lot on this blog, and some others like Spain and Mexico, which I'm saving for a rainy day (g).

While this dish feels more autumn/winter, I made it on a warm spring day, and loved its bold, sassy flavours anyway. You do need the oven on, though, so this post is probably better timed for those in the Southern Hemisphere (Saffron Papa?).

You'll also need to marinate the chicken and get your beans soaking in the morning or even night before. And if you have a pressure cooker (and I think everyone needs at least one!), this is doable on a weeknight. If not, you might want to save it for the weekend. If you do use the pressure cooker, do not add the cooked beans in step 4 or they will disintegrate. Add them at the end with the pumpkin.

Oh and the book? Well I checked it out in Australia last Christmas, and its retro, homemade look and chummy tone totally won me over, but I'm sitting tight until it comes out in
paperback. I think Allegra's recipes will be appearing here from time to time, so I've given her her own tag. Welcome to my favourite food writers club, Allegra.

Allegra's bigger than big chicken, pumpkin and borlotti beans

Serves 4 (generously)

2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tbsp wholegrain mustard
1½ tbsp clear honey
½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes
2 cloves of garlic, chopped
¾ tsp fennel seeds
1 tsp dried oregano
2 bay leaves
3 tsp extra virgin olive oil

500g boneless chicken thighs, cut into large dice
120g dried borlotti beans (or 1 x 400g tin, drained, added at the same point in the recipe)
1 x 400g tin of chopped tomatoes
1 medium leek, thickly sliced and washed well
500ml chicken stock
1 heaped tbsp chopped sage
250g pumpkin, peeled and cut into 4cm dice
salt and pepper

1 Put the vinegar, mustard, honey, chilli, garlic, fennel seed, oregano, bay leaves and olive oil into a dish and roll the chicken around in it Put into the fridge to marinade overnight. At the same time, soak the borlotti beans overnight in plenty of cold water.

2 Next day, drain the borlotti, cover with fresh water and simmer until cooked - about 1½ hours. [Saffron: Alternatively, place drained beans in a medium pressure cooker, cover with water and the perforated inner lid or rack (if your pressure cooker has one), to keep the beans down. Put the lid on and bring to pressure, then reduce the heat and cook for 2-2.5 min. Unseal straight away to prevent beans from overcooking.]

3 When the beans are pretty much cooked, fry the chicken with the marinade in a dry, medium hot, heavy-bottomed saucepan - you don't need any oil as it's already in the marinade.
Cook for about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally; be careful about it catching on the bottom of the pan - caramelising good, burning bad.

4 Preheat the oven to 210C/410F/gas mark 6½.
Add the tomatoes, leek, cooked drained beans [S: unless using a pressure cooker, in which case, add them with the pumpkin at the end], stock and sage to the chicken, stir well and simmer for about half an hour. [S: Alternatively, cook under low pressure for 7-10 min.]

5 Roll the pumpkin cubes in a little olive oil and some seasoning, lay them out on a baking tray and roast in the preheated oven for about 25 minutes, shuffling them once - you want them to have a bit of colour.

6 Once the pumpkin is done turn the chicken off and stir the pumpkin into it. Add a generous splosh of great olive oil to finish - it's even better the next day.

Enjoy!

Cooking class 10: Drinking party snack plate

2009-05-25T12:29:00.019+09:00

I took two ABC cooking classes in May, as there wasn't really anything I wanted to do among the June offerings. Actually, I wasn't planning on taking this class, either, but seeing the scrummy-looking plates that another class was tucking into quickly changed my mind.

What we had was basically a degustation menu for a drinking party! Seven more or less healthy snacks, a domburi of sliced bonito topped with Japanese aromatics, and a drink. Nine items altogether. Not bad for a 1-hour lesson. (One hour, by the way, because the teacher cleaned did the cleaning up while we ate and we only had to wash our dishes!)

So, what all did we get? From left to right in the top photo: (back row) deep-fried ginger pork; broccoli dressed in cod-egg mayonnaise; crunchy cherry tomato and rakkyo (Japanese pickled shallot) salad; (front row) octopus with kim chi; deep-fried bonito and cheese parcels; sardine, ume (Japanese pickled plum) and lemon pinchos; and Japanese-style summer rolls.

The cherry tom/pickled shallot combi really hit the spot with me. Tart and crunchy, but still healthy (unlike salt and vinegar chips, say (g).)

The pork was also a bit of a revelation, with the strips of pork basically flung into hot oil still in their marinade. This is the same technique used for frying chunks of chicken, but I'd never come across it for thin strips of meat. The katakuriko (dogtooth violet starch) magically forms a coating when it hits the oil. It's ingenious, really.

I was particularly super impressed with the rice bowl, which was topped not only with my favourite seared bonito, but ginger, myoga (Japanese ginger) and ao-jiso (perilla) and garlic chips as well! A very moorish mouthful. I will definitely be making this again, so stay tuned for a translation of the recipe.

Bonito also showed up arm in arm with cheese in little deep-fried "purses". These fun little bites would probably be perfect for anyone who needs their munchies to be fried.

In case you are wondering, it was not beer, cheap sake or shochu we had to wash this down, but cider vinegar soda. The girls found this a little tart, but it was still a bit on the mild side for me, even with the lemon garnish squeezed in (g). I reckon it also wanted some ginger juice to add a bit of zip.

Saffron

Cooking class 9: A Chinese party banquet

2009-05-18T12:42:00.012+09:00

Another cooking class at ABC Cooking Studio. The Japanese pickings have been a little slim since ABC changed their set-up in April, so it was Chinese food this time.

In the old days, the Saffron household had a "live-in" Chinese chef, so there was never really any reason to have a go at it myself. More recently, the mouth-watering film Eat Drink Man Woman has been about the size of it when it comes to Chinese food (or Taiwanese, as the case may be). Being that it has been a long time between Chinese mouthfuls, I was happy to give this Japanese version of Chinese food a go. It certainly looked yummy on ABC's website.

The main dish was youlinji, or deep-fried chicken with a katakuriko ("dogtooth violet starch" if you will; a common Japanese ingredient) coating the same as Japanese karaage. This was served served with match-sticked veggies, wrapped in uncooked spring roll wrappers, with a garlic-ginger dipping sauce. The chicken was really gorgeous and crisp, the result of two fryings: first at 160 C to cook the meat, then at 180 C until the desired rich golden colour was reached.

There were 2 side dishes. The cucumber and zhacai (Chinese pickled vegetable) salad featured lots of different textures: slippery cloud ears (a Chinese fungus also known as tree ears), crunchy strips of reconstituted kanten, and bumpy bashed cucumbers (a common Japanese presentation), alongside the pickle. It was lightly dressed with sesame paste and sesame oil. I thought the salad had potential, maybe with a little more seasoning.

The "mixed" rice, was very tasty and took all of two seconds to make. A little gently fried pork cut into strips, a little salt and soy sauce, and a little sliced spring onion were simply folded into cooked rice and served up. The girls in the class were quite excited by this one.

We also made a sweetcorn soup, but I felt the egg white was a little rubbery and I'm not so fond of the chicken stock granules used at ABC, so enough said about that one, methinks.

For dessert we took an inordinate amount of time to make sweet bean paste-filled sesame-coated rice flour dumplings (zhima qiu in Chinese, goma dango in Japanese). These were lovely to look at and tasted fine, but if I wanted to eat them, I'd probably just nip down to Yokohama China Town and forgo the palaver of making them (then again, I'm not really a sweet person, so it might just be me...).

I did learn about shiratamako and ukiko (aka jin-ko), which Googling reveal to be "non-glutinous white rice flour" and "wheat starch". As a total novice when it comes to rice dumpling-making, I don't know a thing about either of these, but it seems that ukiko is also used in the translucent wrappers for har gao, the steamed prawn dumplings of yum cha fame. Another interesting nugget is that these fried sweets contain lard. For pliability, apparently. There you go, we both learned something today!

Saffron

A picnic triad 3: Mashed zucchini with onions, garlic and mint

2009-05-11T12:51:00.014+09:00

While googling around for picnic recipes, I remembered that I had not yet bought Claudia Roden's paean to picnics, Picnics: And Other Outdoor Feasts, which I'd spied a couple of years back, what else, getting ready for dear H & Hi's annual picnic! (I've ordered the book (since I know I will use it year after year (g)) and will let you know what I think later.)

I came across this picnic recipe of Claudia's on the American Express site Food & Wine. It's a super easy to make appetizer that is exactly what it says it is on the tin. I used less mint than called for below as I prefer peppermint, and added the juice of the lemon (I couldn't resist) rather than presenting it with lemon wedges. You can do both, if it takes your fancy.

Perfect for picnics with veggie eaters, you can whip this up in no time. Which was just as well in my case!

Claudia's picnic mashed zucchini with onions, garlic and mint

Serves 4-6, with other picnic food

450 g zucchini, cut into 3 cm lengths
1.5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
1 tbsp coarsely chopped mint, or to taste
Salt and freshly ground pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
1 lemon, cut into wedges (optional)

1 Place the cut zucchini into a microwave-safe container in one layer and microwave until soft, around 10 min. Drain and, using a fork, mash the zucchini in a colander to squeeze out as much liquid as possible.

2 Heat 1 tbsp of the olive oil. Add the onions and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until lightly browned, about 8 min. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, until it just begins to color, about 30 seconds. Add the zucchini, mint and lemon juice, season with salt and pepper and cook, stirring, until well mixed and heated through, about 5 min.

3 Stir in the remaining half tbsp of olive oil and serve warm or at room temperature with the lemon wedges.

Enjoy!

A picnic triad 1: Ottolenghi's kisir: a Turkish tomato & bulghur salad

2009-05-11T12:50:00.032+09:00

It was time, once again, for the annual picnic in commemoration of dear friends H and Hi's meeting some 15 years ago--on a picnic. Coming around 10 days later than usual, the weather for this year's picnic was nothing short of spectacular.

I was still humming and hawing about what to make 2 days out, but remembered seeing the recipe for this this Ottolenghi take on the classic Turkish bulghur and tomato salad kisir (pronounced "kuh-suhr") on the Guardian website and thought it might go down alright.

I had made kisir before using Claudia Roden's recipe in Arabesque: A Taste of Morocco, Turkey & Lebanon. Delicious though it was, it didn't really do it for my Turkish guests at the time. Then I had it in Konya, Turkey and all became clear. Claudia's version was a true salad (no cooking!) where the Konya version I had involved stove time and was no side dish.

Looking at my notes from Turkey, I see that the onions were fried in a copious amount of oil, the tomatoes (and red pepper) in the dish were in paste form, and peeled and diced cucumbers joined in the fun. In Konya, at least, kisir is a meal of itself. A great mound is placed on a communal platter and everyone takes his share, parceling it up in lettuce and other leaves, with maybe an extra chilli and a dollop of pomegranate molasses or squeeze of lemon for good measure. Heaven!

Ottolenghi's version more closely resembles that tart, tomato-stained grain dish (though minus the cucumber). I like this fairly sharp, so I've upped the lemon and pomegranate molasses. I also left out the chilli on the day as there were to be a lot of Young People at the picnic.

The Ottolenghi kisir has a pretty pomegrate seed and mint topping that adds a nice festive touch, but which I doubt is authentically Turkish. I packed the topping ingredients separately for the picnic and added them when we were ready to eat. Short of time, I didn't take washed lettuce leaves with me, but it might be fun to do that next time.

Here's a picture of the three dishes I ended up taking to the picnic. Recipes for the other two to follow shortly.

Ottolenghi's kisir

Serves 6-8 as a main dish or a great crowd as an appetiser

2 large onions, peeled and finely chopped
60 ml olive oil, plus more to finish
2 tbsp tomato paste
4 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
90 ml water
400 g coarse bulghur wheat
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses
1 lemon, juiced
6 tbsp chopped parsley (flat-leaf, for preference)
3 spring onions, finely shredded, plus an extra one to garnish
2 green chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
Salt and black pepper
Seeds from 1 pomegranate (optional, to garnish)
1 handful mint leaves, some whole, some roughly shredded

Cos lettuce, cabbage and other green leaves, to serve (optional)

1 In a large saucepan, sauté the onions in the oil until they turn translucent - about 5 min. Add the tomato paste and cook over medium heat for 2 min, stirring all the while with a wooden spoon. Add the chopped fresh tomatoes, leave them to simmer on a low heat for 4 min, then add the water. Bring to a boil, remove the pan from the heat and stir in the bulghur.

2 Add the molasses, lemon juice, parsley, chopped spring onion, chilli, garlic and cumin. Season, stir, then set aside until the salad has cooled to room temperature or is just lukewarm.

3 Taste, adjust the seasoning as necessary--it will probably need plenty of salt--and spoon on to a serving dish. Roughly flatten out the salad with a palette knife, creating a wave-like pattern on the surface, then scatter pomegranate seeds over and about. Drizzle olive oil over the top and finish with the mint and the extra spring onion. Serve with cos, cabbage and other green leaves for wrapping.

Enjoy!

A picnic triad 2: Fagiolli e tonno: Tuscan beans with tuna

2009-05-11T12:50:00.031+09:00

The inspiration for making this simple but delicious bean, tomato and tuna melange was a scrummy antipasto I had a lovely seaside restaurant in Shonan a few weeks back. The weather was rather chilly that day, especially seated out on the restaurant's waterfront deck, but the food was great so who could complain?

This recipe is the first I've tried from the door-stopping Little Foods of the Mediterranean: 500 Fabulous Recipes for Antipasti, Tapas, Hors d'Oeuvres, Meze, and More, and I'll definitely be back for more!

Little Foods was one of the two cookbooks I allowed myself to purchase when back in Oz and finally able to visit the Melbourne cookbook lover's mecca Books for Cooks. If you have been reading for any length of time, you will know I have had to seriously reign in my cookbook purchasing and was on the strictest of self-imposed orders to only buy two from a list of 20 or so titles that I had. Little Foods was not on my list, but edged out 19 other books that I'd been wanting for forever!

Author Clifford Wright had somehow managed to slip under my radar, but turns out to be one of those rare and fabulous writers whose outsider status translates into authority on his subject--which is all things Mediterranean. Little Foods may be the closest we will ever get to the definitive work on "little dishes" (not all of which, Wright rightfully points out, are appetizers). Covering Italy, Spain, France, the Mediterranean Middle East & North Africa, it brings the similarities and differences of this food meant for grazing in convivial company into sharp relief.

The book gives lots of food for thought, and is a fabulous read in its own right. The sheer number of recipes must have made categorization a monumental task! While my vote would have been on a country-by-country format, Wright goes with chapterizing by type of dish, which would cut down on sub-heading repetition, I suppose. All recipes are indexed by country of origin, though, and there is also a great selection of suggested menus for various occasions that is also arranged by country/region.

I am less fond of the flimsy low-quality paper this book is printed on, however. In my shoe-box sized kitchen, the only place for a large-format cookbook is balanced precariously on the edge of the sink. This makes splashes from the washing of hands inevitable and the odd accidental falling into the sink a very real possibility. Mediocre paperback paper really doesn't cut it in my kitchen, I'm afraid. I'm really not sure why cookbook publishers don't think of these things.

But back to the recipe. In its original form, it could take anything up to 1.5 hours to make. You can cut this back to virtually no time at all by soaking the beans overnight and cooking them in a pressure cooker. In fact, I only cooked mine for one (1) minute under pressure, lest they fell apart. It is much safer to finish off the cooking with the lid off the pressure cooker for a few minutes than risk ending up with a mushy pulp.

I also reduced the amount of olive oil in the recipe, because that's what I do.

Although I made the original portion, it was way too much. Halving it (which I've done below) should give you plenty to serve to a crowd with other antipasti and small foods.

Tuscan beans and tuna

Serves 8 when served with other antipasti

3/4 cup dried cannellini or other white beans, picked over, rinsed and soaked overnight
1/2 cup loosely packed fresh sage leaves
3 1/2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt
2 garlic cloves, flattened
500 g ripe tomatoes, peeled, seeded and chopped
2 tbsp loosely packed sliced fresh basil leaves
freshly ground black pepper
200 g tinned tuna in oil

1 Drain beans and place in a small pressure cooker. Cover generously with water, add the sage, and either use the pressure cooker's slotted drop-in lid or add 1/2 tbsp oil to prevent the beans from frothing up. Cover and bring to pressure, then cook under low pressure for 1 minute. Remove lid quickly to prevent overcooking. Test and, if necessary, cook uncovered until tender.

Alternatively, if cooking the traditional way, bring beans and sage to a gentle boil, then cook over medium-low heat, uncovered, until tender. Drain.

2 In a large nonreactive frying pan, heat the olive oil over medium-high heat and cook the garlic cloves , stirring , until they begin to turn light brown, about 1 minute. Remove the garlic from the pan and discard. Add the tomatoes and lightly season with salt. Raise the heat to high and cook until slightly thicker, about 8 min, stirring frequently to prevent sticking, and lowering the heat if it splatters too much. Reduce the heat to low, add the drained beans and the basil, season with pepper, and simmer, covered, until the beans are hot, about 10 min, stirring occasionally.

3 Turn the heat off, add the tuna and its oil, and stir. Adjust the seasoning. Let the mixture rest for 15 min. Serve hot or at room temperature.

Enjoy!

Mughal mushroom curry

2009-05-11T12:48:00.021+09:00

I've been feeling the need for more meatless food these days for some virtuous reasons and one not so virtuous one: my freezer's already full of yummy stuff being saved for a rainy day (or at least a lazy evening).

There is another practical reason for going veggie at least part of the week and that is that it usually cuts down your cooking time. You can't beat that!

From Najmieh Batmanglij's Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey, this recipe is a relatively quick weeknight fix. It features an unusual apple, sultana and nut topping. I've read that the use of fruit and nuts in savory dishes is characteristic of Mughal cuisine. It also chimes in nicely with a similar theme in Persian cuisine, which might explain why this recipe caught the eye of Najmieh khanom.

To cook with yogurt, you often need to stabilize it first to avoid splitting. Mixing in cornflour, as in this recipe, is just one method. I had no trouble with splitting, even when reheating the dish in the microwave the next day.

I left out the garam masala and chillies out of respect for the Young Man's delicate palate. Next time, I think I might add a little turmeric, say 1/4-1/2 tsp, to give it a nice golden colour.

Mughal mushroom curry

4 tbsp vegetable oil, butter or ghee
1/2 cup blanched almonds
1 green apple, peeled and sliced
2 small onions, peeled and thinly sliced
2 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced
1 tsp coriander seeds
2.5 cm fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 bay leaf
2 red chillies, seeded and sliced, or to taste
450 g assorted mushrooms, sliced
1 cup chopped celery
2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 tsp hot curry powder
2 tsp garam masala
1 large tomato, peeled and sliced
1 1/2 cups plain yogurt
2 tsp cornflour [cornstarch]

1/4 cup chopped fresh coriander [cilantro] to garnish (optional)

1 In a wok or deep-sided frying pan, heat 2 tbsp oil over medium heat, until very hot. Add the almonds, raisins and apples, and stir-fry for 20 sec. Remove with a slotted spoon and set aside.

2 Heat the remaining oil in the same wok, until very hot. Add the garlic, coriander seeds, ginger, bay leaf and chillies and stir-fry for 1 min. Add the mushrooms and celery, and cook for 5 min. Add the salt, pepper, curry powder, garam masala and tomato. Cover and cook over very low heat for 10 min.

3 Meanwhile, in a mixing bowl, combine yogurt and cornflour. Beat, in one direction, for 5 min.

4 Just before serving, discard the bay leaf and gradually add the yogurt mixture to the wok over very low heat, stirring constantly to prevent curdling.

5 Adjust seasoning to taste. Transfer to a serving dish and garnish with the almond mixture from step 1, and coriander, and serve hot with rice, pasta or couscous

Enjoy!

Cooking class 8: "Home party" menu

2009-05-11T12:43:00.011+09:00

ABC Cooking Studio has changed its setup and none of last month's offerings took my fancy, so it's been a while between lessons. Previously I have been taking the Japanese food class, but that option has now changed to a class in basics, and some of it is a little, well, basic. I decided to go for the entertaining class this time. Let's have a "home party" (so called because urban Japanese rarely entertain at home due to space constraints. For the record, I've never let that stop me).

The menu was two kinds of oven-baked rice croquettes, one flavoured with tomato and Camembert, the other with curry and Camembert; taramasalata with pan-fried veggies; a tomato-based seafood soup; and crepes Suzette for dessert.

I liked the idea of the croquettes more than the final result. Baking rather than frying them increased the likelihood of their falling apart, and more than a few of the ones we made did just that.

The taramasalata (hiding under the veggies) was a bit bland to my taste buds, but my Japanese classmates liked it well enough.

But oh the seafood and tomato soup! I'll definitely be making that again. While it only contained 3 kinds of seafood (prawns, white fish and octopus), the taste was rich and unctuous. The secret, apparently, is to blast it in the oven for a bit after it is finished cooking on the stove.

I will also make the crepes again. Big taste with little fuss: my kind of cooking. And the block of butter and slosh of Cointreau in the sauce have absolutely nothing to do with it (g).

My orange zesting skills from Persian cooking came in handy here. I used the veggie peeler rather than fuss about with the chef's knife as the instructor suggested. Life's too short.

Being Japan, this was my opportunity to learn the fine art of flipping crepes with cooking chopsticks. It can be done*, but I'm not sure why you would bother.

* Lay one chopstick across the frying pan and lift the edge of the crepe onto it with the other. Lift the chopstick with the crepe draped over it and with a rolling motion, gently turn the crepe over.

Saffron

Hummus with pomegranate molasses

2009-04-21T12:36:00.010+09:00

About a year ago, a strange thing happened to me on my way to work; my 70-minutes-each-way, hang-off-a-strap train commute to work: someone offered me a seat! And not just any someone, but a fellow non-Japanese someone. Normally, the chances of this happening are only slightly better than winning the lottery, but to find out that the someone in question was not only from Iran, but also a fellow foodie, well, it's probably not even worth calculating odds anymore.

S and his dear wife and daughter visited us last November, laden with all kinds of Iranian and Japanese goodies (including the most amazing macrobiotic apple crumble cake, which I then made for another Iranian-Japanese family we visited this Persian New Year. Recipe for that coming soon). I finally got to return the compliment on a glorious spring day this month.

This was just the excuse I was waiting for to try this mouth-watering hummus idea from Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East & North Africa. It must seem like this is the only book I cook from these days, but the appetiser section is just so good I want to try them all!

You may know hummus in its most well known form of chickpeas and tahini. But "hummus" simply means "chickpeas" in Arabic, and there are many other possible variations, as Mr Salloum's book above attests.

Pomegranates are one of my very favourite fruits, so I was itching to try this pomegranate-laced version for the longest time. And it was just as good as I imagined! I did tweak the recipe a little, however, using dried chickpeas instead of tinned, and sharpening it up with lemon juice, as the Lebanese pomegranate molasses I used gave the hummus a sweeter taste than I wanted.

The pomegranate seeds you see in the photo are from a little stash I froze in an inspired fit of organization during their short season here. They added just the right festive touch on top of the hummus, but did, unfortunately, loose some of their juice on defrosting.

Hummus with pomegranate molasses

300 g cooked chickpeas*
1 tbsp pomegranate molasses

1 tbsp lemon juice
2 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp salt**
1/4 tsp pepper
4 tbsp olive oil
chopped flat-flat leaf parsley, to garnish
pomegranate seeds, to garnish

1 Place chickpeas, pomegranate molasses, lemon juice, garlic, salt, pepper, and 2 tbsp of the olive oil in a blender or food processor and process until smooth.

2 Spread on a serving dish and garnish with parsley and pomegranate seeds. Sprinkle with remaining oil just before serving.

* If you are going to the trouble of cooking chickpeas from dried, do yourself a favour and make more than you need for this recipe and freeze the remainder for later. Rinse chickpeas and soak overnight. Drain. If using a pressure cooker, cover with water and the metal inner lid to prevent the peas moving around too much in cooking. Bring to pressure, lower heat and cook for 2.5 min under low pressure. If you don't have a pressure cooker, cover with water and simmer until tender, which can take anything up to 90 min, I am told. You'll probably need to top up the water if cooking for so long.

** If you use tinned chickpeas instead of dried, reduce or eliminate the salt from the recipe.

Enjoy!

Zesty meze 1: Chickpea and tamarind dip

2009-03-17T14:26:00.015+09:00

A month back, we had a big surprise when a favourite former teacher of the Young Man and dear friend, O, mailed to say he was back in town and had some goodies from Turkey for the YM. Wahoo! As it happened, my birthday fell the next week, so we arranged to have dinner at our place.

A fellow foodie, O is also one of the world's more dedicated chocoholics, so this was a chance to try out my new go-to chocolate cake on an honest critic. That seemed to go down very well, and we had a jolly time reliving a past experiment O and the YM had with biscuit-thin brownies (which they nicknamed brow-kies), that perhaps O would rather forget! O did get his own back, though, by casting aspersions on my dolma-rolling skills. As the YM said in my defence (bless his heart), we all have a first time, don't we?!

Luck was really rolling on our side when O agreed to a big day of table tennis with the YM followed by another supper at ours. Fortunately or unfortunately, a dearth of vineleaves in dead-of-winter Yokohama prevented me from defending my dolma rolling this time, but I'll be working on it for next time, you can be sure!

Instead, I put together an array of meze goodies to go with Tessa Kiros' wonderful avgolemono, made this time with 2.5 l of water and the rice thrown in from the beginning of (pressure) cooking.

The first of the meze was a Gulf variation of that old stand-by, hummus, this time with tongue-tingling fresh ginger and tamarind! It is an adaptation from a recipe in Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East & North Africa by Habeeb Salloum, one of the 3 cookbooks I permitted myself to bring back from Australia over Christmas/New Year.

I've already made a couple of things from this book, and adore the exciting and unusual combinations of flavours that have been eye-openers even for me! This zippy hummus was so addictive that our guest ended up not leaving enough room for the soup, silly boy (g).

If making this in Japan, tamarind paste (the pulp in jars is easier to use than the blocks, which contain seeds and fibres) is available from various places on-line (none of which I've used before), or check out your nearest Thai, Vietnamese or Indian food store. I usually get mine in Australia, where the zingy paste is readily available in the local supermarket of the small town where Saffron-Papa and Mama live. It keeps for a goodly long time in the fridge, but you might also want to give the some of the other tamarind recipes I've gathered here a go, too.

As for me, I'm chomping at the bit to try out Mr. Salloum's hummus with pomegranate molasses!

Oh, and just a word about the etymology of tamarind. As you can see from the name of this hummus below, tamarind is tamar Hindi in Arabic (and Persian, also). Yup, that's "Hindi" as in "India/n". Which reminds me of the story O told us of how the native-to-the-US bird that goes gobble-gobble came to be known as turkey in English and Hindi (India, again) in Turkish! Don't you just love language!

Hummus bi tamar Hindi: Chickpea and tamarind dip

2 cups cooked chickpeas
3 tbsp tahini
2 tbsp tamarind paste, or to taste
1.5 tbsp finely chopped fresh ginger, or to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
1 tbsp chopped cilantro [coriander] or flat-leaf parsley
1 tbsp olive oil

1 Place all ingredients, except coriander or parsley and oil, in a food processor and process into a somewhat thick paste, adding a little water as necessary. Taste and adjust flavours to taste.

2 Place on a serving platter and sprinkle with coriander or parsley and oil just before serving.

Enjoy!

Maazat halyoon: Syrian/Lebanese avocado appetizer

2009-03-10T13:17:00.014+09:00

I've made this yummy dip/spread a couple of times now, and it seems to go down very well. I wouldn't necessarily have thought of it myself, but avocado, lemon and sesame combination really goes well.

The sesame paste I am currently using is a Japanese one (Makoto no goma, available in nice big jars for not too much yen at Otsuya in Ueno), which means the seeds are toasted before grinding. It is very flavoursome, and I think you can get away with using slightly less than is called for in this recipe (I have adjusted it accordingly). As ever, let your own taste buds be the guide. More or less of anything is not going to spoil the dip. The parsley gives this some body and texture. Don't whizz it to oblivion, and make sure you use flat-leaf parsley, as the curly stuff would be a little strident here.

This is another from the amazing appetizer chapter of Habeeb Salloum's brilliant Classic Vegetarian Cooking from the Middle East and North Africa. It goes particularly well with Argentine chimichurri bread.

Avocado appetizer

4 tbsp lemon juice
2-3 tbsp tahini
1 large or 2 medium avocados
1/4 cup finely chopped parsley
2 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic, crushed
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp pepper
pinch cayenne
1/2 tsp paprika

1 Place lemon juice and tahini in a blender or food processor and blend for a moment. Set aside.

2 Pit and peel avocados and cut into pieces. Add, with the remaining ingredients, except paprika, to the lemon juice-tahini mixture. Blend to a smooth paste.

3 Place on a flat serving platter, sprinkle with paprika and serve as is or chilled.

Enjoy!

Stir-fried pineapple with ginger (and garlic and lime!)

2009-03-10T13:16:00.007+09:00

Here is an unusual savory pineapple side dish. It is just bursting with zip, tang and heat. There is so much going on here that it may outshine the main course, so make sure it is something really able to stand up to it.

The original recipe is in India's 500 Best Recipes, which I have written about before. However, there is no indication as to where it originates (not all of the recipes are from India, despite the book's title). The soy sauce suggests that it a Southeast Asian source might be more likely than an Indian one. Not that it matters when it tastes this good.

You could probably substitute tinned pineapple, but make sure it is not sweetened. Or then again, that might be another interesting variation you could offer as a dessert...

Stir-fried pineapple with ginger

1 pineapple
1 tbsp vegetable oil
2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
1/4 onion, sliced thinly
5 cm piece fresh ginger, peeled and sliced into fine matchsticks
2 tbsp light soy sauce
Juice of 1/2 lime
1 fresh red chilli, seeded and sliced finely

1 Trim and peel the pineapple. Cut in quarters lengthwise and cut out the core. Chop into bite-sized pieces.

2 Heat the oil in a wok or frying pan. Stir-fry the garlic and onion over a medium heat for 2-3 min, until golden. Do not let garlic burn or it will become bitter.

3 Add the pineapple. Stir-fry for about 2 min, or until the pineapple pieces start to turn golden on the edges.

4 Add the ginger, soy sauce, lime juice and chilli.

5 Toss the mixture together until well mixed. Cook over a low heat for a further 2 min. Serve the pineapple as an accompaniment to grilled meat or strongly flavoured fish.

Enjoy!

Warm glass noodles with edamame

2009-02-24T12:40:00.013+09:00

Life events have overtaken me lately and I've not been very inspired in the kitchen. In fact, I even lost my sense of taste for a while. Bad times, indeed. But like the gambling addict who always thinks his next big win is "just round the corner," I am determined to stay in the game!

Luckily for me, this Ottolenghi recipe from the Guardian caught my eye and I think I may have turned that corner at last.

Edamame, you say; from a Middle Eastern food specialist?! Well why not? The recipe is touted as Japanese-inspired on the Guardian site, but in reality, edamame, or young green soy beans, is the only Japanese influence. What really makes it is the blend of lip-smacking Southeast Asian flavours--galangal/ginger, tamarind and garlic--in the sauce. (You'll see from the photo above that I omitted the red chilli, but only out of respect for the Young Man's palate.)

This is a breeze to make, or rather it would be if you don't have to pod your edamame before you start. Here in Japan, edamame are a summertime treat served chilled in their pods after a light boiling and salting. Perfect with the big jugs of beer that are so popular here in the dog days of summer. Those days being far from nigh, I contented myself with frozen edamame, still in the pods. You'll want to defrost them in water before even attempting to extract the tasty green beans inside, so make sure to get them out of the freezer in good time (I'd pop them in the fridge in the morning before going to work next time). Having a YM in the house usually expedites such mundane but essential processes as podding, but in this case my YM was otherwise engaged with his studies.

I took Yotam Ottolenghi's advice about boosting this with some yaki dofu, or extra-firm tofu that's been grilled, giving it a lovely colour. This kind of tofu, if well drained (by placing a plate or other weight on top of it for about 10 minutes), stands up really well to stir-frying. You'll need to break it up a bit before you put it in the pan. I found that I didn't have enough sauce to really flavour the tofu (which really sucks up the flavours), and added some Thai fish sauce to compensate. Even making it more substantial with the tofu, you'll probably want another side dish or two to make this a meal.

Ottolenghi's warm glass noodles with edamame

Serves four

250g glass or cellophane noodles
1 pack firm tofu such as yaki dofu
2 tbsp sunflower oil
3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed
300g (net weight) cooked edamame beans, podded
3 spring onions, including the green parts, thinly sliced
1 fresh red chilli, finely chopped
3 tbsp coriander [cilantro] leaves, chopped, plus a few whole leaves for garnish
3 tbsp mint leaves, shredded
3 tbsp sesame seeds, toasted

For the sauce
2 tbsp grated galangal (or ginger)
4 limes, juiced
3 tbsp groundnut oil
2 tbsp palm sugar
2 tsp tamarind paste
1 tsp Tamari soy sauce
1 tsp fine sea salt

1 Soak the noodles in a bowl of hot water until soft - about five minutes. Be careful not to leave them in the water for too long because they can go soggy. Strain and leave to dry.

2 In a small bowl, whisk together all the sauce ingredients and set aside.

3 Heat the oil in a large frying pan or a wok and add the garlic (and drained tofu, if using). As it starts to turn golden, remove the pan from the heat and add the sauce and noodles. Gently mix together, add most of the edamame, the onions, chilli and fresh herbs. Stir while you return the pan to the heat for a few seconds, just to heat through, taste and add salt if you like.

4 Pile up the noodles on a large platter or in a shallow bowl, scatter over the reserved edamame and the sesame seeds, and garnish with the whole coriander leaves. You can also serve the dish at room temperature, in which case adjust the seasoning just before you do so.

Enjoy!

Yogurtlu makarna: Turkish pasta with meat & yogurt-mint sauce

2009-02-04T12:58:00.009+09:00

This pasta dish, according to Classical Turkish Cooking author Algar hanim, is a kind of cheats manti, or Turkish ravioli. It is absolutely delectable and super easy. If you are the type that tends to have mint around or even growing in the garden, you'll probably have everything to make this on a total whim. I know I did.

Unlike the Western way with spaghetti bolognese, meat is more of a condiment in this sauce. The real flavour, and it is bold and strident, is in the mint and the garlic. In fact, I would even go so far as to suggest that the recipe name be changed to pasta with meat & yogurt-garlic-mint sauce! If you have any objections at all to raw garlic in food, this may not be the recipe for you. Everyone else gather round, because this is a real treat.

Before you start, get your yogurt out of the fridge as it needs to be at room temperature. Mine wasn't, and didn't get close to it before the pasta was ready, so I actually tossed the pasta-meat mixture with the yogurt sauce in the pan and heated it, very gently, through.

I also bypassed the paprika-butter flourish (so-called by the doyenne of North African and Mediterranean cooking, Paula Wolfert), mainly due to the cost of butter in Japan these days. But I know from my time in Turkey (where I saw butter in logs that must have easily weighed 2 kg!), that toppings like this add a real richness and flavour to a dish. Given the small amount of meat in the dish, I'd say that if butter is not a luxury item in your neighbourhood then you should definitely go for it!

Yogurtlu makarna: Turkish pasta with meat & yogurt-mint sauce

Serves 4

Meat sauce
3 tbsp olive oil
3/4 cup chopped onions
250 g minced meat
1-2 chillies, seeded and finely chopped (optional)
2 sprigs thyme
Handful of chopped flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground pepper

Yogurt-mint sauce
3 cups yogurt, at room temperature
2-3 tsp crushed garlic
2 tsp fresh mint leaves, finely chopped

450 g penne or rigatoni (S: I used fusili)

Butter paprika topping
5 tbsp butter
3/4 tsp Hungarian paprika
Pinch of cayenne

Fresh mint leaves for garnish

1 To make the sauce, cook the onions in olive oil until soft. Add meat, chillies (if using), thyme, and parsley and brown the meat. Stir in a few tablespoons of water, season with salt and pepper, cover, and simmer 10 minutes, adding more water, if necessary.

2 To make the yogurt-mint sauce, put all ingredients in a bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until the mixture is very creamy. Set aside on a warm spot on the stove.

3 Cook and strain the pasta, and reheat the meat sauce. Toss the pasta with the hot meat sauce and place in a serving bowl. Pour the yogurt-mint sauce over it.

4 For the topping, heat the butter until frothy, add the paprika and cayenne, wait one second, and drizzle it over the yogurt-mint sauce. Sprinkle the top with mint leaves cut into ribbons and serve hot.

Enjoy!

Cooking class 8: Buri-daikon, daikon salad, osuimono

2009-02-04T12:57:00.014+09:00

I learned a great favourite of Japanese winter cuisine at my last cooking class: buri-daikon, or yellowtail simmered with long Japanese radish. Buri is my go-to fish in the winter. It's flesh is always juicy and the dark part a real delicacy. Plus it's one of the few fishes that the Young Man will deign to eat (g).

We had it with a mild clear Japanese broth (osuimono), which was a little on the bland side for me. The gu, or filling ingredients in osuimono can be virtually anything, but the broth is probably always based on ichibandashi, a stock made from kombu (dried kelp) and katsuobushi (bonito shavings). The redeeming feature of the one we made was a special egg concoction called shimetamago, or "squeezed" egg. This was made by pouring a prepared egg mixture through a slotted spoon so that it falls into a pan of hot water in ribbons, then gathering up the cooked eggy threads in a cotton cloth and rolling it in a sushi mat to produce a light, fluffy egg cylinder. It's a little bit of a performance, but a handy technique to know for when we find a killer suimono recipe (g).

With the theme of daikon, those long white radishes that you might have seen in Asian (i.e. Far Eastern) shops, we naturally had another rendition of daikon salad. I really liked the dressing for this one, which also features pulped daikon. Dikon overkill? Not really. Oxidization works on the pulped (actually grated so finely it becomes a slush) daikon, making it hotter so it's quite a different taste from the crunchy straws in the salad itself.

In the NHK science and food program Tameshite gatten, they found that pulped daikon stays sweet for the first 3 minutes, and then grows hotter, peaking at 6 minutes, after which the heat goes down slowly. So there you go. You can decide how hot you want your dressing and time the pulping accordingly. If you don't have an oroshigane, a metal or ceramic dish with raised "bubbles" that turn daikon, ginger, apple and other such things into pulp, I'm guessing a quick whizz in a small food processor would also do the trick.

And speaking of tricks, this was a clever way of using up the dried bonito flakes used in the dashi for the broth. Stir-fry them with some mild shishito Japanese chillies! There are no fans of shishito at our house, but I imagine you could substitute any other soft veggie with good results.

Saffron

40th anniversary bash roundup

2009-01-14T12:30:00.008+09:00

Saffron Mama's Glasgow trifle--one of the dishes that didn't make the feast table

I'm back in Japan now after a fabulously relaxing few weeks in Australia. With my "only-17-years-late" graduation, Christmas and New Year in quick succession, there was plenty of excitement, too. The last big event of the trip was a Ruby Wedding anniversary party for Saffron Papa and Mama!

Saffron Papa, Mama and I cooked up a storm in the three days leading up to the party and managed to make rather more food that was strictly necessary (g). (So much so, actually, that some did not even make it to the table!)

Some of the party guests were kind enough to comment on my contributions, so I am rounding up the recipes here to make it nice and easy for them to replicate them at home if they choose. I would also point them to the original recipe sources, all of which are documented in my blog posts below, for more treats in the same vein.

A selection of Middle Eastern appetizers

Turkish tomato dip/salad
Moroccan carrot dip
Turkish red pepper, walnut and pomegranate dip

Tzatziki

Lemon-spiked main courses

Moroccan lamb with peas and preserved lemons
(Note to our guests: Saffron Mama made more preserved lemons than we needed, so contact her if you would like some. Otherwise, they are very easy to make.)

Pakistani mince and potato curry

Finally, I'd like to thank all our guests for their own culinary contributions--Cypriot dolma-dakia stuffed vine leaves, the world's best lasagne, jumbo pavlovas, a fruit platter, and brownies and a lemon meringue pie. What a great feast it turned out to be!

Saffron

Uncle D's Cypriot dolma-dakia

2009-01-14T12:29:00.022+09:00

Photo courtesy of Saffron Papa

Uncle D, a good friend of Saffron Papa and Mama's, is Greek Cypriot and has a great interest in food and travel. As you can imagine, we bonded almost instantly (g).

For many years, Saffron Mama has raved about his dolma-dakia. Imagine my joy, then, when he offered to make these special stuffed vine leaves for the big do for my parents' 40th anniversary. Never one to let a foodie opportunity go by, I cheekily finagled having the making of these delectable parcels done at Saffron Papa and Mama's to see how it is done myself. A long-time fan of stuffed everything, I have scores of recipes for stuffed vine leaves, but no access to the leaves. So this was my maiden dolma-dakia voyage.

The actual dolma rolling was very easy and the vine leaves much more forgiving than I had imagined. Leaves a bit small? Rip up some less perfect specimens to make up the size. Tears in a leaf? Just patch it up the same way!

Like kibbe, jiaozi/gyoza and other fiddly stuffed foods made in great quantities, the process of making dolma-dakia is quite relaxed and convivial. Uncle D and I quickly stuffed a huge pan of over 1 kg of mince into leaves, but I could have kept going all afternoon. Once rolled, the little packets were layered in tight circles in a pot and refrigerated for further cooking on the day of the party.

These are meat-stuffed dolma-dakia, but I have it on good authority that Uncle D also makes a killer vegetarian version. Can't wait to try that one next time, Uncle D!

Uncle D's Cypriot dolma-dakia

Serves many

1 kg lean minced beef
1 small onion, chopped
1 handful flat-leaf parsley, chopped finely
1 small handful fresh mint, chopped finely
1 tsp mixed spice
3 tbsp tomato paste
1 400 g tin tomatoes
1 empty tomato tin of water
1 cup long-grain rice
juice of 1 1/2 lemons
salt & pepper
800 g fresh vine leaves

150-200 ml lemon juice
water

1 For the filling: Begin browning the mince and add the onions, herbs, mixed spice, tinned tomatoes, water, tomato paste, rice and lemon juice before the mince is fully browned. Season well with salt and pepper. Cook for around 5 minutes, then leave to cool. The rice will continue to absorb the liquid as the filling cools.

2 For the vine leaves: If tender, pour boiled water over and leave for 5 minutes, then drain. If less tender, place in a saucepan, cover with cold water and simmer for 4 minutes, then drain. Any unused vine leaves can be frozen for later use. If the veins on the leaf are still tough, you can cut out the thickest part, but you should try to keep the integrity of the leaf intact.

3 To roll dolma-dakia: Place 1 prepared vine leaf vein side down with the point facing away from you. Place around 1 tbsp of the cooled mince mixture cross-wise on the leaf at the place where the veins meet up. The amount of filling you need will depend on the size of the leaf. Fold up the two flaps of leaf closest to you, and roll away from yourself, squeezing down on the filling and tucking the edges in neatly as you go. Do not roll too tightly as the dolma will swell further when cooked. Place rolled dolma in tight layers in a pot large enough to hold them. Refrigerate until needed.

4 To cook: Pour on most of the lemon juice and enough water to come halfway up the side of the topmost layer of dolmas. The cooking liquid should be quite tart. Add remaining lemon juice, if required. Weigh dolmas down with a plate to prevent them moving or splitting during cooking. Bring to the boil and simmer gently for half an hour or so. Serve cool as part of a meze table.

Enjoy!

Saffron papa's traditional Boxing Day mango sorbet

2009-01-14T12:29:00.011+09:00

It is a tradition at Saffron Papa and Mama's that we have Saffron Papa's special mango sorbet on Boxing Day. It just happens that mangoes are at their best in Australia at just this time of year. When we were last visiting in 2006/7, Queensland mangoes were going for 99 cents each at the discount supermarket Aldi. While they had come up in price this time, they were still reasonable enough to make a nice big box of this luscious, fruity ice.

Ostensibly, this was made for the big 40th anniversary celebration, and we were not allowed any before then (!). However, it didn't actually make an appearance until after the shindig due to cries of No more! from our very well-fed party guests. Not to worry, that just meant all the more for us! (Sorry guys...)

The recipe is from Low Fat, No Fat Cookbook, a Reader's Digest title I am not familiar with, other than this one lovely idea (thinking, as I do, that taking all the fat out of food takes all the pleasure and flavour out of it).

There is a slight graininess to this sorbet that might be improved by churning it in an ice-cream maker. Lacking one of these, Saffron Papa uses an electric mixer in place of the whisk in the recipe, and I think he's on the right track, especially if you are doubling or tripling the recipe, as he tends to do. Not that it matters, really: This is just like eating frozen mango and much to be recommended after a big Christmas feast.

Oh, and in keeping with the tropical theme, the leftover coconut cream makes great pina coladas on the side!

Note: This sorbet contains uncooked egg whites, so make sure you use really fresh eggs.

Mango sorbet

Serves 4

1/2 cup (125 g) castor sugar
Juice of 1/2 lemon
500 g fresh mango flesh or mango pieces in syrup, drained
2 tbsp creamed coconut
2 egg whites

1 Place the sugar and 1 cup of water into a small saucepan and bring the mixture to the boil, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Reduce the heat and simmer for 5 min to make a syrup. Strain the lemon juice into the syrup, then put aside for 15 min to coll.

2 Puree the syrup, mango and creamed coconut in a food processor, or with a handheld mixer, to make about 3 1/4 cups. Pour the mixture into a freezer-proof container, cover and freeze for 2 hours, or until just firm. (Use the fast-freeze setting if your freezer has one.)

3 When the mango mixture is frozen, whisk the egg shites until they form soft peaks. Scape the mango mixture with a fork to form crystals, then use a whisk to beat in the egg whites, making sure they are well mixed. Return the sorbet to the freezer and freeze for 1 hr 30 min.

4 Remove the sorbet from the freezer and whisk again, Press down with a spatula and return to the freezer for a further hour, or until firm.

5 Remove sorbet from freezer 20 minutes before serving. Any remaining sorbet will keep, frozen, for 3 months.

Enjoy!

Christmas roundup 4: On pancetta, chestnuts and brussels sprouts

2008-12-27T22:10:00.006+09:00

Can Brussels sprouts ever be sexy? It's probably not something you'll have spent much time pondering, but you might be surprised to know that the answer is Yes!

Last Christmas, despite the absence of Brussels sprouts on any Christmas table in living memory, I made this Nigella recipe for "Perfect Sprouts" so that my dear Iranian friend G got the right idea about what's involved with Christmas dinner. I was mightily impressed, I have to say. Even with the teeny tiny brassicas available in Japanese supermarkets.

I thought I'd recreate the dish again this year in Australia, where there was a super-abundance of jumbo Brussels that could be had for a song.

It was a good plan, but I ran into a snag in that there was not a chestnut to be had in the whole of Melbourne! I tried the food court at David Jones (which seems more like a waste of space than an international food emporium. Japan does it better with its eyes closed.) I tried every supermarket in town, but nope, nai, nada, nyet. No chestnuts.

Then there was the pancetta. From my experience last year, pancetta seemed to be kind of upmarket bacon in a block. It was definitely not the chilli-hot rolled cured meat that Saffron Papa brought back from the local Bacchus Marsh supermarket. It was the same in all the shops. In Melbourne, it seems, pancetta is spicy! Subsequent research tells me that spicing is quite common, and the meat prepared in many variations from region to region. Still, it did make it harder to please Saffron Mama, who has a physical reaction to the mere mention of a black pepper never mind actual chilli in her mouth!

Undaunted, I substituted macadamias and pecans for the chestnuts, and kept the pancetta cubes nice and big for easy removal by those with more delicate palates. While the macadamias and pecans did not have the same meatiness as chestnuts, they did add a nice little crunch and an Australian touch to this Christmas treat. Reading over the recipe now, I see that I forgot to add the parsley this time. Not to worry. However, it ends up, I think that this recipe, from Nigella's Feast (which I don't own, but devoured cover to cover at Saffron Papa and Mama's), will be a Yuletide staple at the Saffron household from now on.

Nigella's perfect Brussels sprouts with chestnuts, pancetta and parsley

1kg Brussels sprouts
250g pancetta, rind removed, cut into 1cm cubes
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
30g butter
250g vacuum-packed chestnuts
60ml marsala [Saffron: or sherry or Chinese cooking wine (Xiaoxing-jiu)]
large bunch parsley, chopped

1 Trim the bottoms off each of the sprouts, cutting a cross into each as you go, or at least a slash. This may not be necessary, but I can't not do it. Then tip them into a large pan of salted boiling water and cook until tender but still retaining a bit of bite, about five minutes or so depending on size. Just spoon one out of the water and test (without burning your tongue and thus ruining the whole lunch for yourself) to be sure.

2 Meanwhile, in a pan large enough to take everything later (or just drain the sprouts and use their pan, once you've drained them), cook the pancetta cubes in the oil, with the rind for more salty fat rendering, until they're bronzed and crisp, but not cooked to the point of having dried out.

3 Add the butter and chestnuts and, with a wooden spoon or spatula, press on the chestnuts to break them up a little. When they're warmed through, turn the heat up and throw in the marsala, letting it bubble away, fusing with the pancetta fat and chestnutty butter to form a glorious savoury syrup.

4 Add the drained sprouts and turn well, sprinkling in half the parsley as you do so. Give a good grinding of pepper; you shouldn't need salt, given the pancetta, but obviously taste to see. Decant to a warmed serving plate and sprinkle over the remaining chopped parsley.

Enjoy!

Christmas roundup 3: The "big chicken" is stuffed

2008-12-27T22:06:00.005+09:00

As I mentioned at the start of this roundup, Saffron-Papa had already chosen a "big chicken" (in his parlance, of course) for our Christmas turkey feast prior to the Young Man and I arriving in Australia. Given that there were to be 12 around our table this Christmas, it was somewhat of a bigger bird than the ones I usually get in Japan! And as we all know, turkey has a bit of a bad rep for cooking up dry. However, using the advice of our good friend Nigella Lawson, as usual, our bird came out juicily tender, the meat falling off the bone.

A bit of a stuffing junkie, I like to stuff both the neck and body cavities with, usually, a cranberry and orange bread stuffing and a herb and nut one. I am rather attached to the cranberry and orange stuffing, which is my approximation of a recipe cited by Nigella in How to Eat, but plumping up dried cranberries with fresh orange juice rather than using fresh ones. I certainly wanted it this year, but I was willing to compromise (g) on the other one. Saffron-Papa, the co-chef of the day, chose a lemon and herb number, for which he chopped up a mountain of fresh herbs from the garden. I mention the herb garden again only because of complete jealousy at the parents' ability to use fresh herbs with wanton abandon. They have more than they can use, in fact, lucky devils!

Cranberry and orange stuffing

Serves 8-10

Zest of one orange and juice of 1-2 more
350 g dried cranberries
125 g butter
500 g fresh breadcrumbs
2 eggs
fresh nutmeg

1 Zest one of the oranges and juice it and one more. Put the cranberries in a small, heavy based saucepan with the orange juice and zest. Bring to the simmering point on a moderate to high flame, then cover and simmer for 5 minutes. The cranberries should have plumped up, but if they are still not their full size, repeat with the juice of the remaining orange. Add the butter in slices and stir, off the heat, until it melts. I usually do this a day early, to make things easier of Christmas Day.

2 Add the breadcrumbs, or, if you made up the cranberry mixture earlier, reheat on a low flame until slightly runny, then add the breadcrumbs and the eggs, beaten. Season with salt and pepper and plenty of fresh grated nutmeg.

3 Either stuff into the turkey before cooking or make into individual portions in a muffin tin and bake for around 10 min, or until lightly golden, at 180 C. This should be done while the turkey is resting and the oven is free.

I can report that Saffron-Papa's stuffing selection was a resounding success. It was based loosely on another recipe in The Ultimate Christmas Cookbook. I include the original recipe here in case I change my mind about the herb and nut stuffing next year. Use your own judgement about the herbs you use and how much. Saffron-Papa used thyme, rosemary and marjoram, I believe.

Parsley, lemon and herb stuffing

Makes around 400g, enough to stuff the neck cavity of a 4 kg bird

115 g fresh breadcrumbs
25 g butter
25 g chopped fresh parsley
herbs
grated rind of 1 lemon
1 small egg, beaten
salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 Mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl and stir to combine them thoroughly.

Enjoy!

Christmas roundup 2: Deluxe Christmas pies

2008-12-27T22:02:00.011+09:00

I love Christmastime and one of the very best aspects of the season is the heady scents that emanate from the kitchen. And one of the very best aromas, for me, is that of Christmas pies. All that cinnamon and fruity goodness... While you can get inferior pies at any supermarket (at least in Australia), I really like making my own.

For many years, I've been making a version of the Christmas pies in Nigella Lawson's How to Eat; basically augmenting a jar of Robertson's mincemeat with grated apple, citrus juice and booze, but this year, at the urging of Saffron-Papa, we made these super luxury pies based on a tart recipe in The Ultimate Christmas Cookbook, a book we come back to year after year. The number and amount of dried fruits in these pies make the recipe prohibitively expensive to make in Japan, but very doable here in Australia.

And the results were really far superior than anything you could buy ready-made. Unusually, the pastry contains ground walnuts and is scented with cinnamon, vanilla and a touch of sugar. It is very rich and moreish. It is very buttery, making it admittedly somewhat difficult to work with. However, I think a little extra flour would help with this. The mincemeat itself is far superior to a bought mixture. It has a nice blend of tart and sweet fruits, balanced with some lemon and green grapes. We loved them!

The recipe gives the instructions for pastry first, but it is best to make the mincemeat in advance and leave it to mature for up to 4 weeks. Though, making it that far in advance might result in reduced supplies as you will "have to" taste at regular intervals to see how it is coming along (g). If you are in a warm climate, it will be best to store the mincemeat in a container in the fridge.

Deluxe mincemeat pies

For the pastry
225 g plain flour
10 ml ground cinnamon
50 g finely ground walnuts
115 g butter, cold from the fridge and cubed
50 g caster sugar
1 egg
2 drops vanilla essence
15 ml cold water

For the mincemeat
2 dessert apples, peeled, cored and coarsely grated
225 g raisins
115 g dried apricots, chopped
115 g dried figs or prunes
225 g green grapes, quartered and seeded [Saffron: I only used half this amount]
50 g chopped almonds
finely grated rind of 1 lemon
30 ml lemon juice
30 ml port or brandy
1/4 tsp mixed spice
115 g soft light brown sugar
25 g butter, melted

1 To make pastry, put the four, cinnamon and walnuts in a food processor. Add the butter and process until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs. Beat the egg, vanilla essence and water with a fork, and add, together with the sugar, to the food processor mixture. Process until a dough forms. Turn out and kneed briefly on a lightly floured surface until smooth. Form into a flat disc, wrap in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 min.

2 Mix all of the mincemeat ingredients together in a large bowl.

3 Roll out pastry to a thickness of 5 mm and cut out circles for bases and stars for lids. Place the pastry circles in the lightly oiled holes of a muffin tin and fill with mincemeat. Top with pastry stars and chill for 30 min.

4 Preheat oven to 180 C. Place baking sheet in the oven to preheat. Place the muffin tin on top of the preheated baking sheet and bake the pies for 15 min, or until golden brown. Cool slightly before removing from the muffin tin. Serve warm or cold.

Enjoy!

Christmas roundup 1: Roasted root vegetables with honey, tamarind and lemon

2008-12-27T20:25:00.013+09:00

Christmas has come and gone, and like most of us, you're probably very happy not to have to think about it for another twelve months. We're still eating leftovers here, but I did want to record my experience with this brilliant recipe from a column in The Guardian by veggie virtuosos Yotam Ottolenghi and Sam Tamimi. If you are into Middle Eastern food, or any food with big, bold flavours, then these guys should be on your radar (I'm so impressed, I've started a new label for recipes of theirs). I suggest you go directly to the link above and click on all sections of this article (links are on the right side of the photo) and get all the recipes for next Chrissie (I know I did!). You might be surprised by what two non-Christian, non-Brits came up with for our big annual feast.

Of course going totally vegetarian is not in the cards for us. I love my turkey, and go to some lengths to ensure a turkey dinner for us at least once a year, even at home in Japan. Visiting my family here in Australia this year made that as easy as pie. In fact Saffron-Papa had already sussed out a good bird before we even arrived!

But I was open to new ideas (please!) for the vegetable portion of the Great Feast, and this is it! While you still have the same old roast root veggies, here they come with a big twist: the sweetness of honey (suggested as a substitute for the original recipe's date syrup: sorry, not in this small town) and tart tamarind. And that is just the cooking juice! After the veggies are roasted up nicely but still a little crisp, they are anointed with lemon juice and zest, finely chopped raw garlic and basil! Mwow! There is enough going on here to keep even the most jaded palate (that would be mine) interested!

I was lucky enough to have lots of fresh thyme and basil straight from Saffron-Mama's well-tended herb garden. It is amazing how much more flavour herbs have when they're plucked right before the using. If I had more sunshine in my (postage stamp-sized) back garden in Japan, I would love to grow my own too, but alas...

So without further ado, here is the recipe, almost as it was found. My one addition was the butternut pumpkin. It's an Australian thing, I know, but a good addition, I feel, especially as we were not having a separate pumpkin dish. I also wouldn't bother about lining your oven tray with cooking paper: the juice soaked right through in my case, and I had to fish it out, in rags, with tongs. That's just one step too much at Christmas for me! Other than that, this is sublime and much too good to keep only for Christmas!

Roasted root vegetables with honey, tamarind & lemon

Serves six.

1 tbsp seedless tamarind paste
70ml warm water
1.5kg (net weight) mixed root vegetables (any combination of carrot, parsnip, celeriac, swede, parsnip, unpeeled sweet potato, peeled butternut pumpkin)
3 large red onions, peeled and cut into wedges
90ml date syrup
75ml olive oil
12 sprigs fresh thyme
1½ tsp salt
Black pepper
3 garlic cloves, crushed
Grated zest and juice of 2 lemons
50g fresh basil leaves

1 Preheat the oven to 210C/425F/ gas mark 7. Whisk together the tamarind paste and warm water, set aside for 20 minutes, then pass through a fine sieve [Saffron: this won't be necessary in the case of tamarind paste].

2 To prepare the vegetables, cut them into chunky wedges (1cm at the thick end), or halve the long roots widthways and then cut each half again lengthways, the fat part into four and the thin into two.

3 In a large bowl, stir together the root vegetables, onions, honey, tamarind mixture, 60ml olive oil, thyme, salt and some pepper. Use a roasting tray large enough to take everything in one layer. Spread the vegetables inside and roast for 40-50 minutes, until they are crunchy yet tender. Taste them - they may well take a little longer.

4 Remove from the oven, stir in the garlic, lemon zest and juice, the remaining oil and most of the basil (save a few leaves to garnish), then taste. Add salt and pepper if needed, transfer to a serving bowl and dot with the reserved basil leaves. Serve warm.

Enjoy!

Fruit and nut couscous with chicken

2008-12-26T09:53:00.009+09:00

Moroccan inspired, rather than derived, this delightful recipe comes from an unexpected source. I bought Barbecue Bible for Saffron-Papa's birthday some years back after lusting over it for many months myself. I still find its mouth-watering photography and yummy-sounding recipes very enticing, but due to space restrictions at the Saffron household, am content to refer to Saffron-Papa's copy whenever in Australia.

Jam-packed with fruit and aromatic spices and bursting with the zing of lemons, this recipe makes a lovely dinner, whether cooked outdoors or in. The chicken is skewered in the original recipe, but you could just as easily grill or pan-fry it, as the mood takes you.

Fruit and nut couscous with chicken

Serves 8

1 kg skinless chicken breast fillets or leg
4 tbsp olive oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground paprika
4 tsp lemon juice

Couscous
8 tbsp olive oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
2 tsp each ground cumin, cinnamon, pepper and ginger
125 g dried dates, chopped
125 g dried apricots, finely chopped
125 blanched almonds, toasted and chopped
1.2 l vegetable stock
375 g couscous
2 tbsp lemon juice
4 tbsp chopped fresh coriander
salt & pepper

To garnish
seeds from half a pomegranate or a handful of dried cranberries
lemon wedges
fresh coriander sprigs

1 Cut the chicken into long thin strips, place them in a shallow dish and add the olive oil, garlic, spices and lemon juice. Stir well, then cover and leave to marinate for 2 hours.

2 To prepare the couscous, heat half of the oil in a saucepan and fry the onion, garlic ans spices for 5 minutes. Stir in the dried fruits and almonds and remove from the heat.
3 Meanwhile, pour the stock over the couscous, cover with a tea towel and leave for 8-10 min, until the grains are fluffed up and the liquid absorbed. Stir in the remaining oil and the fruit and nut mixture, add the lemon juice and coriander and season with salt and pepper to taste.

4 While the couscous is standing, cook the chicken for 4-5 minutes on each side over medium coals, until charred and cooked through. Serve with the couscous, garnished with pomegranate seeds or dried cranberries, lemon wedges and coriander sprigs.

Enjoy!

Cooking class 7: Osechi traditional Japanese New Year's treats

2008-12-15T12:43:00.016+09:00

In Just Over 24 Hours, I'll be jetting my way back to Australia for the first time in 2 years. Ostensibly it's to spend time with the parents and do the Christmas thing like a good daughter, but it will be so much more than that this time, what with graduations and ruby wedding anniversaries and who knows all what!

But Christmas, as always, is going to be the big one. With all the preparations in the mad trip lead up, you'd probably think I was mad trying to squeeze in one more cooking class at ABC before we leave. I mean I've not even done half the Christmas shopping yet!

Fortunately or unfortunately, the stomach just about always rules the mind in my case, so it was off to learn some more morsels of Osechi ryori, the traditional foods eaten for luck and wealth in Japan at the New Year.

Last year (technically the beginning of this year (g)), I had my first go at Osechi, choosing bites that most appealed to me. It turns out that I chose mainly from the 1st layer of the 2-tier festive box. As luck would have it, ABC was offering selections from the 2nd layer! (They've cleverly set it up so that you need to go two years in order to get the full compliment of recipes (g).)

From bottom left we have tori no matsukaze-yaki, baked seasoned chicken mince cut in the shape of a hagoita, the wooden paddle used to play the Japanese New Year's game of hanetsuki. We topped ours with white poppy seeds and aonori or green laver.

Next is datemaki, a fish-enriched egg pancake that is rolled on a special mat to give it a distinctive zig-zag pattern.

The white and pink ovals are kamaboko, a kind of steamed fish paste. This is eaten year round, but it's red and white colouring makes it an auspicious addition to the New Year's spread.

Crustaceans of all kinds are used in Osechi and the particular one chosen often depends on what the budget is. At ABC, we opened the bellies of some large prawns, sprinkled them with salt and sake, topped them with white and black sesame seeds and cooked them in the frying pan. Ebi no onisudare-yaki, easy and delicious.

The white "blob" in the front right of the top photo is not a bun but a small Japanese turnip called kabu. We cut into the flesh to make the petals of a chrysanthemum, then marinated the whole lot in citron juice and vinegar. I thought the flavour could have been stronger, but it turns out that these are usually left to marinate for a day or two, rather than the 20 or so minutes our lesson permitted. I also thought it would be nice to have yellow chrysanthemums, maybe painted with some gardenia (kuchinashi) dye, perhaps.

Accompanying all this was a different version of Ozoni to the one I made last year. In Eastern Japan, this soup is made with a clear soy-based broth and grilled square-shaped pounded rice cakes (mochi). The filling recipe offered by ABC was in the Western Japan style, which is miso-based, and contains round mochi that is heated in hot water.

Traditionally, Osechi is made over the last few days of the year (in the midst of a top-to-bottom "spring" clean of the house, no less), and eaten cold over the first few days of the year. Having a hot soup would be essential to stave off the cold in the old days.

As it was we, too, did not finally sit down to eat until after 9:40 pm, so we were all starving. Surprisingly, despite the late hour, each one of us was well contented after finishing what we'd made.

Saffron

Claudia's Tunisian meatballs in tomato sauce

2008-12-15T12:42:00.009+09:00

It's 6:30 pm on Sunday night and no plan for dinner! What to do? Something easy and tasty, sure, but nothing that's going to take too long and that will require a trip to the supermarket. Thinking quick, I came up with meatballs, something we haven't had for a while, and a dish for which the Middle East has infinite variations.

In the end I went with this one from Claudia Roden's Book of Jewish Food, my all-time favourite cookbook. With a simple tomato sauce, the real flavour in these show-stopping meatballs is in the meatballs themselves. With aromatics like the fiery chilli and garlic paste harissa, garlic, mint, cinnamon and rose, you know you're in for a treat! Made per the recipe, the chilli paste is more warm glow than burn, but feel free to up the harissa if you like.

One interesting technique I learned from this recipe was to blast the meatballs in the oven for a short time before putting them in the sauce. This serves two purposes: (1) the meatballs get browned without the need for turning and inevitably misshaping them, and (2) the excess fat runs into the oven tray rather than your sauce.

If you don't have powdered rosebuds, don't despair. The meatballs will still be fabulous. If you don't have enough tomatoes, either, then use what you have. In my case 1 small tin of tomatoes, some fresh ones, including cherry toms, and a good slug of leftover passata.

The Young Man adored these and asked why we don't have meatballs more often. Well no need to ask twice; there are several dozen meatball recipes in Book alone, and more than enough time to try each one!

Claudia's Tunisian meatballs in tomato sauce

For the meatballs
600 g mince lamb, beef veal (or pork if it is not an issue with you) or a mixture
1 small onion, finely chopped
1/2-3/4 tsp salt
pepper
3 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley or coriander (cilantro)
1 tbsp chopped mint
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp rosebud powder
1/2 tsp harissa, optional

For the tomato sauce
4 cloves garlic, crushed
oil to fry
1 kg tomatoes, peeled and chopped or 1 800 g can of tomatoes, or a mixture of the two
salt and pepper
2 tbsp tomato puree
1-2 tbsp sugar

1 Mix the ingredients for the meatballs and kneed to a soft paste. Make little balls or ovals the size of a small walnut. Place the balls on a baking sheet and roast them for 7 minutes in the oven at 230 C, until slightly coloured.

2 To make the tomato sauce, fry the garlic in a little oil until fragrant. Add the tomatoes, salt, pepper, tomato puree and sugar and simmer for 15 min. The put in the meatballs and simmer another 20 min. Serve with rice.

Enjoy!

Classic chocolate cake

2008-12-03T12:20:00.013+09:00

If you've visited here before, you won't need me to tell you that dessert recipes are not front and center (g). The truth is, I'm a savoury person at heart. I have basically been making he same two cakes (banana bread and pavlova) for as long as I can remember. Why change a good thing, right?

But we made some really yummy chocolate cupcakes at my cooking class this month, so the Young Man's 14th birthday seemed like the perfect opportunity to give the recipe some legs as a full-blown birthday cake.

It was rather experimental, given that I'm no baker and that the recipe I had was for four! But some Net research gave me the confidence to give it a go, even without a backup in case of disaster. Don't you love the adrenalin of the kitchen??!

Well, it turned out to be a bit of a comedy of errors. Everything was going well, but a conversation going on with the YM at the side distracted me enough to forget to add the cream to the chocolate before folding that mixture into the meringue. Actually, the cake was in the oven (!) before I saw the full container of cream still on the counter. Then instead of quadrupling the cream in the original recipe, I multiplied it by 6. And had the oven set too high! But the kitchen gods must have been smiling on me, as the cake turned out beautifully for all that, and we all agreed that the extra cream, which gave it a luscious smoothness, was a good innovation.

Whew. With my confidence back, I reckon I'm going to give this a go with some walnuts in it next time. Or would that be trying my luck??

Classic chocolate cake

120 g milk chocolate
120 ml whipping cream
80 g butter or margarine (unsalted)
4 eggs, separated
120 g sugar
4 tsp plain flour
80 g cocoa powder

To garnish
Fruit (berries would be my choice)
Icing (confectioner's) sugar to dust

1 Sift flour and cocoa powder into a small bowl and set aside. Lightly oil a 20 cm springform cake tin. Preheat oven to 170 C.

2 Break up chocolate and place with the butter or margarine into a medium bowl. Melt slowly by placing in a larger bowl of hot (50-60 C) water. When melted, add cream and egg yolks and stir until smooth.

3 Beat egg whites with an electric mixer on high until soft peaks form. Add the sugar half at a time, and beat on high until stiff peaks form.

4 Add 1/3 of the meringue mixture to the chocolate mixture and blend well. Add the remaining meringue and fold in only until the mixture becomes marbled. Sift the flour and cocoa mixture again into the cake mixture and fold in until just mixed.

5 Pour carefully into prepared cake tin and bake for 40 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the middle of the cake comes with crumbs on it. Cool for 5 minutes in the tin before removing.

6 Just before serving, decorate with fruit and dust with icing sugar .

Enjoy!

Autumn harvest salad with persimmons

2008-12-03T12:19:00.017+09:00

I had already pretty much decided on the menu for the Young Man's 14th (!) birthday party when I discovered the recipe on which I based this pretty salad at the NPR Food site just 2 days before the big event. I saw it and I had to have it, menu be damned!

Marrying pears (Japanese nashi in my case) with persimmons and pomegranates (two of my very favourite fruits) as it does, I was always going to fall for this crisp seasonal delight, but to then smother it all with with a citrus dressing?! It was all over.

I wouldn't say that this was a huge hit with the Young People at the party, who were too involved in playing to be much bothered with the food, but we mums more than made up for it. I made various substitutions from the original recipe. The only thing that I left out altogether was the pecans. I ran out of those a while back, but they are on the shopping list for our Christmas visit to Australia, so assuming we still have persimmons and nashi in January when we get back, I might give this another go then. Maybe with Nigel's 3 citrus dressing.

Fingers crossed, as I also have my eye on the persimmon and apple salsa featured in the same article (which you should read to get the full low-down on sweet vs astringent persimmons. There is a difference, and it is the sweet kind (usually squat and squarish here in Japan) that you want for this recipe.

Autumn harvest salad with persimmons

Vinaigrette
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar (apple vinegar in Japan)
1 teaspoon grainy Dijon mustard (or regular Dijon plus 1/2 teaspoon mustard seeds)
1 teaspoon honey
2 tablespoons orange juice
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1 teaspoon chopped fresh mint
Salt and pepper, to taste

Salad
1 head of interesting lettuce (a bitter kind, for preference)
1 small bag of baby leaf salad
1 sweet persimmon, peeled and cut into 8 wedges
1 nashi, peeled and cut into thin wedges
1 handful sultanas or raisins (soaked in any remaining orange juice)
1/4 cup pomegranate arils (the edible red pieces of the fruit)

1 For the vinaigrette, shake all ingredients in a small jar and set aside.

2 In a large bowl, toss the lettuce, baby leaf, persimmons and pears. Pour half of the vinaigrette over salad and toss until coated. Add sultanas and pomegranate arils. Drizzle with the remaining vinaigrette.

Enjoy!

Claudia's Hummus

2008-12-03T12:19:00.011+09:00

I've gathered quite a few recipes for Middle Eastern dips on Saffron and Lemons in the last year, but it dawned on me that hummus, the mother of all meze dips is not here! How fortunate, then, that I had an opportunity to whip up some for the Mediterranean burgers I was making for the Young Man's birthday party.

This version is from Claudia Roden's New Book of Middle Eastern Food, where we learn that hummus does not have to contain tahini, as most of the tubs you'll find in Australian and other supermarkets tend to. The word hummus itself means chickpeas, but since this is a near ubiquitous use for the little beans around the Arab-speaking world, it also refers to this sharp, smooth dip. If you make a version with sesame paste in it, it is known as hummus bi tahina (humus with sesame paste). So there you go!

This makes enough for a big party. You could halve the recipe for a smaller gathering, but it keeps for around a week in the fridge (and probably in the freezer, though I haven't tried it). We had this with some of Auntie H's world-famous light-as-air bread, and with macadamia, basil and sun-dried tomato pesto on chicken burgers. Yum! Oh, and mixed with some strained yogurt, this made a lovely dressing for slowly pan-fried carrot medallions, and probably steamed broccoli, too.

Claudia Roden's Hummus

250 g chickpeas
salt and pepper
2 tsp cumin
2 large cloves garlic (crushed), or to taste
50-90 ml fresh lemon juice
50 ml olive oil
good pinch of cayenne (optional)
parsley, olive oil and paprika to garnish

1 Soak the chickpeas for a few hours or overnight in cold water. Drain and simmer in fresh cold water until really soft, which usually takes more than an hour, adding salt towards the end of the cooking time. Alternatively, pressure cook for around 6 min under low pressure. Save the cooking water.

Cool a little and put in a food processor with enough of the cooking water to achieve a soft cream. You must add the flavourings gradually and taste often, it should be distinctly sharp. You can leave a few chick peas whole to use as garnish

Serve with sprigs of parsley, a sprinkling of paprika and a dribble of olive oil.

Enjoy!

Japanese spinach with sesame dressing

2008-11-11T13:45:00.009+09:00

As my adventures at Japanese cooking school continue, it is becoming apparent that I am not coming through on the second half of the bargain: actually making what I learn for the Young Man.

However, short of ideas for a veggie accompaniment to a non-Japanese meal, I remembered the recipe for veggies with 2 sesame dressings from a couple of months back. Horenso no goma-ae (spinach in sesame dressing) is an old favourite, and very easy to make. It is meant to be eaten cold or at room temperature and keeps well in the fridge, so feel free to make it in advance.

This is a "white" version is made with sesame paste, which visitors to this site with a Middle Eastern bent will likely have in the form of tahini, tahina or tahin, amongst its many regional names. It is slightly different in taste from Japanese sesame paste, but will do very well just the same. I use it myself.

The recipe also calls for lightly ground sesame seeds, which in Japan you can buy in packets ready-ground or in a special grinder. If you don have access to these, a quick blitz in a mini food processor will do it or, if you want a more "authentic" feel, grind them yourself in a suribachi (which looks like a ceramic bowl with a washboard inside). You don't want to grind them too fine, though. It won't matter if some seeds stay whole.

The spinach is blanched quickly in boiling water and then gently squeezed as dry as possible before cutting into lengths. Do yourself a favour and don't cut the roots off the spinach bunches until after you blanch them, as this will make it easier to keep the bunches together for wringing (you'll probably be surprised at the amount of liquid that comes out, but do squeeze it all out or you'll end up with a watery mess). Of course, if spinach is only available as loose leaves where you live, you'll just have to make do, I'm afraid. I think you'll find this earthy but fresh side is worth the trouble anyway.

Oh, and you can use the dressing on the half the weight of Japanese mushrooms (maitake or shiitake would be good) or boiled green beans cut on the diagonal.

Japanese spinach with sesame dressing

400 g spinach, roots attached
2 tbsp white sesame seeds, toasted and lightly ground
1 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp sesame paste or tahini
2 tsp Japanese soy sauce

1 Wash spinach very well and drain. Bring a large pot of salted water to the boil and blanch spinach until it wilts. Remove and drain until cool.

2 To make the dressing, mix together the remaining ingredients.

3 Gather up bunches of spinach and squeeze as much water out as possible. Think squeezing out long hair after washing. Remove the roots and cut into 4 cm lengths.

4 Add the spinach to the dressing and mix gently but thoroughly.

Enjoy!

Foodie weekend: Pumpkin pie

2008-11-06T11:58:00.012+09:00

For too many years now, I've been promising to make my "traditional" Halloween pumpkin pie but not quite getting round to it.

I say traditional because although pumpkins, let alone pumpkin pie, were not part of my childhood Halloween in Scotland (or Australia, come to think of it), I did make this pie faithfully for many years when the Young Man was, well, younger (g).

This year, I thought I'd try it with the fragrant sweet spice blend instead of cinnamon. Especially since we were making the pie for a Halloween party hosted by a dear friend whose hubby is not partial to that spice. If you want to go this route, you'll probably want to double (or more) the "cinnamon" in the recipe. Just to be sure, taste it before filling your pie crust. Taste it twice or even three times if need be (g).

Given the price of butter in Japan these days, I followed my dear friend H's lead and made the pastry with half lard/half butter, with an extra pinch or two of salt to make up for the salt missing from the butter. Lard, sold in squeezable bottles here in Japan, is much easier to handle than butter, and gives a nice light crust.

I usually roll my pastry between two sheets of food wrap, which prevents it from sticking to the counter top and minimises cleanup afterwards. Double bonus!

The recipe is from a food column that Tamako Sakamoto had in the Japan Times many years ago (its seems to have ended in 1999!) . Even my photocopy is tatty round the edges and covered in stains. Evidence of many happy Halloweens past, and hopefully more to come in future.

I might not have grown up with pumpkin pie at Halloween, but fellow party-goer C, who hails from the US, pronounced the pie a success, even if it was a little light on the cinnamon (g).

Pumpkin pie

200 g plain flour
100 g butter (or 50 g butter + 50 lard + 2 extra pinches of salt)
Pinch of salt
5 tbsp cold water

Filling
300 g pumpkin, peeled weight
50 g butter
100 g sugar
2 egg yolks
150 ml heavy cream (also works with what is called "whip" in Japan)
1/2 tsp cinnamon (or 1 1/2 tsp fragrant sweet spices)
1/4 tsp allspice
Dash of vanilla extract

1 Sift flour and salt in large mixing bowl. Rub in the butter (& lard, if using). Alternatively, blitz flour, salt and fat in the food processor. Stir in water and blend until dough holds together. Wrap and chill until ready to use.

2 On a lightly floured board, roll out the pastry to a 5 mm thickness. Place the pastry in a lightly buttered 21-cm round pie dish. Prick the bottom of the shell with a fork and chill 30 minutes longer.

3 Now prepare the filling. Remove seeds from the pumpkin, wash and cover with food wrap. Microwave on high until very tender. Peel with a knife while warm. Push through a sieve or smooth in a food processor (you may need to add some of the cream to keep the blades whirring).

4 Cream butter in a mixing bowl and add pumpkin, sugar, egg yolks, remaining cream, cinnamon (or sweet fragrant spices), allspice and vanilla extract. Mix well..

5 Preheat the oven to 200 C. Line the shell with two layers of aluminium foil, weighted down with beans or aluminium pie weights. Bake in the oven for 10 min. Remove the foil and beans or weights Reduce heat to 180 C and continue baking for 15-20 min until the pastry turns lightly coloured.

6 Fill the shell with pumpkin mixture. Bake for 30 min or until set.

Enjoy!

PS I wonder if the Scottish Halloween is still homemade, with tangerines, nuts and apples the "treats" of the day like it was in my day (god that makes me feel old), or if Halloween is the same commercial "event" that is has become here in Japan?...

PPS The bottle of South African wine in the photo was a terrific foil for the pie. Especially as it provided a ready excuse for our dear hostess to regale us with tales of when she visited said winery.

Foodie weekend: Cooking class 6: Borscht, priozhki and classic chocola

2008-11-05T12:35:00.016+09:00

For my cooking class this month I didn't take the Japanese class, but the Russian one. Russian food has been on my radar for over a year, since finding out about Diana Henry's Roast Figs, Sugar Snow, the cold-weather partner to her book on Mediterranean, North African and Middle Eastern food, Crazy Water, Pickled Lemons. I count the latter as a treasure, and waited until October this year to receive what would have been a Christmas present last year!

Not content to leave it there (am I ever?), I ordered another book Russian cookbook (more on which later, as it is my cookbook of the year!) which I was in the midst of reading when ABC Cooking Studio offered a taste of Russia at school.

On the menu: borscht, which is more correctly Ukrainian cooking, gorgeous meat and egg-filled pirozhki and classic chocolat for dessert (not sure about any Russki origins there, but very tasty just the same).

The borscht was okaaay. The meat needed more cooking, but in the limited time available, you'd need a pressure cooker to do more. Once again it used the granulated "consomme" that I dislike so much. I reckon I'll be able to do much better. It was good to know that you can buy beetroot in Japan, even if only cooked in water in the can.

The pirozhki were terrific. The dough was really easy to make and fun to play with. You can make these in the oven, apparently, and I'll be investigating this option as a healthier and less smelly alternative to deep frying.

The classic chocolat was a revelation. I would never have thought you could make cake in such a short time (well, cupcakes anyway). This is a real keeper, and I think I'll look into making it a full-sized cake the next time.

Cooking class 5: Tempura with bean & chestnut rice and tart octopus salad with Japanese egg "mayonnaise"

2008-10-17T16:53:00.017+09:00

Tempura, deep-fried seafood and vegetable morsels served with a soy-based dipping sauce, is such a quintessentially Japanese dish it is easy to forget that it is actually a foreign import, brought by the Dutch.

Not one for the oily smell left after deep-frying at home, I was happy to do it in class at ABC, where it was teamed up with bean and chestnut rice and a show-stopping vinegared side dish.

The rice, which had a little "sticky" rice thrown in to give a little more texture, was flavourful and, with it's reddish hue, very autumnal. I wasn't able to pin down why the beans did not need pre-cooking and were merely cooked with the rice, but I suspect they were of a cooked and dried variety. Beans like that are eaten as a snack here in Japan, and are the beans of choice for throwing on Bean Throwing Day in February, when everyone expels "ogres" and welcomes good luck into their homes at the end of winter.

The octopus, cucumber and wakame side dish was superb. Particularly the kimizu (literally egg yolk-vinegar), essentially an oil-free mayonnaise. I learned a new cutting technique called snake's belly, where you make millimetre deep cuts on a slant on two sides along the length of a thin Japanese cucumber. This allows the cucumber to bend like a snake. It's not just for decoration, though: this helps the kimizu to penetrate into the cucumber. Ingenious! I am dying to make this again, but no one around me is game to try the octopus. Perhaps a little steamed chicken might substitute, but it definitely wants to be something slippery.

Saffron

Slatit batata helwa: Claudia's Moroccan sweet potato salad

2008-10-14T11:17:00.010+09:00

Sweet potatoes are a funny vegetable. They pop up in many countries, and each has its own way with them.

In Australia, sweet potatoes often get flung in the oven in a medley with other root veggies with the Sunday roast. If a spice is used at all, it's likely to be cumin, otherwise it's topped with lashings of butter.

One freezing winter when I was studying in China, old guys used to hang around the university gates selling for pennies piping hot roast sweet potatoes, which they weighed on old-time pan and rod scales . With dormitory heating on only at set times of the day, we unacclimatized Aussie students were as likely to use those hot pods as handwarmers as we were to tuck into their belly-filling flaky sweetness.

Around Yokohama and Tokyo, the sound of the yaki-imo or stone-roasted sweet potato guy calling out, "Ishi yaki-imo, yaki-imo," from his wood-fired stove-bedecked truck is the first sign of autumn. But buy one from this old guy, and you're likely to pay a small fortune!

Here we have a Moroccan treatment, with spices, lemon, honey and other goodies. This one is boiled, and with its unctuous spicy sweet and sour coating, looks and tastes quite impressive. I'm afraid that I disappointed my dear friend Hw when he asked how long this took to make; is twenty minutes really all it takes to get something this criminally good!

In all the years I've cooked this, I've not once not had to boil down the cooking liquid until it was syrupy. But that could just be the type of sweet potatoes I use. Anyway, this is more than made up for by spicy aroma that wafts through the house whenever I make this. You might want to wait to skim the scum off the surface before you add those spices, though.

This is also from the same article of Claudia's in the Guardian here. And yes, this and the tagine in the previous post are perfect partners.

Slatit batata helwa (Claudia's Moroccan sweet potato salad)

In this Moroccan salad, the mix of sweet and spicy is quite delicious. It is nice as it is but you may add, if you like, a handful of black olives, the chopped peel of a preserved lemon and a tablespoon of capers. Serve it as an appetiser.

Serves 6

700 g sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 4 cm cubes
½ tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp harissa or a good pinch chilli pepper
Juice of 1 lemon
2 tsps honey
salt
5 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
4 tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley or coriander

1 Boil the sweet potatoes in just enough water to cover. Stir in the ginger, cinnamon, harissa or ground chilli pepper, lemon juice, honey and salt, and cook, uncovered, for 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender, turning them over once and being careful not to let them overcook and fall apart. The sauce should be reduced to a thick syrupy consistency. If it is not, lift out the potatoes with a slotted spoon into a serving dish and reduce the sauce further by boiling.

2 Just before the end of cooking stir in the oil and the parsley or coriander. Serve cold.

Enjoy!

Claudia's Moroccan lamb tagine with peas and preserved lemons

2008-10-14T10:41:00.010+09:00

Autumn is here and we've not had a lemon recipe for a while! Funny how one's thoughts turn to lemons as soon as the skies get moody...

This is one of the very first Middle Eastern dishes I ever cooked (as a way of using those magic preserved lemons), and it is pretty much a classic in my food repertoire now. It's clean, sunny taste is perfect whatever the season, but I reckon its at its best when the weather is less than stellar. It is also as great an introduction to the seductive taste of preserved lemons as you are likely to find.

I made it for an unseasonably cool January birthday party in Australia one year. There was a big spread, and when I first checked, it looked like my "exotic" contribution might have been a bit too exotic. But just a few minutes later, you'd've been hard pressed to get enough to coat a bit of bread. You can't get much more of a vote of confidence than that.

I've adjusted the recipe for metric and the pressure cooker, but the credit for it rightly belongs with my very, very favourite food writer, Claudia Roden, who wrote the wonderful article in the Guardian that it appeared in a few years back. A culinary tour Morocco is one of my dreams, and Claudia's writing is one of the main reasons. Rereading the article now, I wouldn't be surprised if I'm not the only one.

Now there is nothing exotic at all about the recipe, the preserved lemons notwithstanding (and they are only salt and lemons after all). If you don't have any, go and make yourself some now. They're a total doddle. Really. We'll still be here when you've got them ready.

I made the tagine with beef this time, and I can tell you that it is not a patch on the lamb version. Leg being my preference. Perhaps its as well, then, that we were not able to take it to its intended recipients due to the Young Man being sick with the cold. Sorry Sa, I'll make it again next time!

Lamb tagine with peas, preserved lemon and olives (if you can find them (g))

Serves 6-8

1 kg leg or shoulder of lamb, trimmed of excess fat and cut into cubes
2 tbsp vegetable oil [S: optional, I've never put it in, and never needed it]
1 onion, chopped
salt and pepper [S: go light with the salt as the lemons are salty]
1 tsp ground ginger
A good pinch of chilli powder or chilli flakes (optional)
½ tsp saffron powder [S: optional; it is a minor attraction on this dish]
500g shelled peas
2 tomatoes, peeled and chopped
Peel of 1 preserved lemon or more, cut into pieces
A dozen green olives

1 Put the meat in a large pressure cooker with the oil (if using), onion, salt and pepper, ginger and saffron. Almost cover with water and cook under low pressure for 45-55 minutes or until the meat is very tender.

2 Add the peas, tomatoes, preserved lemon peel and olives and cook uncovered a few minutes longer, until the peas are tender and the sauce reduced.

Enjoy!

Harira: An Algerian take on the Ramadan-fast-breaking soup

2008-09-29T16:36:00.012+09:00

I find foods with cultural significance irresistible. And feast time foods especially so. In the 10 months I've had this blog I've waxed lyrical about the foods of Christmas, the Japanese New Year (Oshogatsu) and Persian New Year (No Ruz). What special foods mean to people is endlessly fascinating.

Although I've made a Moroccan version of the Ramadan fast-breaking soup harira before, the cultural element was missing. I was overjoyed, then, to find 64 sq ft kitchen, a gorgeous Algerian food blog by Warda, who writes deliciously and evocatively about what it is like to grow up in a household where lively ritual after-dark feasting occurs for a whole month of the year! (Many first-hand accounts suggest to me anyway that Ramadan should more rightly be called the Islamic feasting rather than fasting month!)

Warda even has a version of harira on her blog, and it is perfect. The soup is rich, despite the tiny amount of meat it contains, the spicing heady, but not overpowering, and the dersa fresh herb and spice topping invigorating. The sum of this soup is so much more than its parts. A blend of fresh coriander leaves, garlic, paprika and caraway (or, in my case mistakenly dill seed), the dersa was particularly intriguing. Googling hasn't provided much insight, but I'll keep you posted if I find out more about this mouth-popping Algerian "salsa".

The use of caraway in Warda's harira intrigued me. In all my years of cooking Middle Eastern food, this was the first time I had call to use this particular spice. But using it this once seems to have opened the floodgates, as just about every recipe I've looked at since has contained the seed! It was in my little list of spice names in Persian (so it's obviously used in Iran), and in several Iraqi recipes in Delights from the Garden of Eden, which I picked up again for a good read.

But back to the harira. I made it with less water than Warda called for, thinking it looked about right for the goodies in the pot, but pureeing the veggies and the addition of bulghur later really thickened the soup up, so my meddling really wasn't required (g). Unusually for me, I even made my beans from scratch, rather than flinging ones I'd cooked and frozen earlier in at the end (I really hate canned legumes, whatever family and friends might tell me). My contribution is to change the measures to metric and adjust the recipe for the pressure cooker.

We had this with bread and just one appetizer and empty bowls and suddenly-too-tight jeans were evidence enough that this recipe is a winner. Definitely try it!

Harira: Fragrant Chickpea and Lamb soup with Bulgur

Serves 6 to 8

1 1/2 cups chickpeas, soaked overnight
300 g stewing lamb, cut into 1 cm chunks
1 tbsp vegetable oil
1 large onion, peeled and roughly diced
1 potato, peeled and roughly diced
1 tomato, roughly diced
3 carrots, peeled and roughly diced
1 tbsp tomato paste
1 small bunch of fresh cilantro [S: coriander], tied with a string
1 generous tsp of allspice
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground
2,000 ml water
1 sprig of mint (5 big leaves)
¾ cup wheat bulgur
Kosher salt, freshly ground black pepper

For the dersa: (fresh herb and spice topping)
3 tbsp cilantro [coriander] leaves
½ tsp ground paprika
2 fat clove garlic, chopped very finely
1 tsp ground caraway

1 In a large pressure cooker, heat the oil on medium heat. Season the lamb chunks and sauté them on each sides until browned. Add the onions, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and chickpeas. Sauté until lightly colored, about 5 minutes. Add the spices, the bunch of cilantro and the tomato paste, and stir to combine. Cover with the water. Season the soup with a generous amount of salt and pepper, cover and bring to pressure. Once the soup comes to pressure, lower the heat and cook for 6 minutes, or until the chickpeas are cooked and the meat fork tender.

2 Discard the cilantro bunch and the stick of cinnamon. Place the meat and chickpeas on a plate, and, using a vegetable mill or stick blender, puree all the rest of the vegetables. You can also use a regular blender, but you will have to do it in batches, as the liquid is very hot.

3 Put the soup back in the pressure cooker. Add the chickpeas and the scattered meat. Bring to the boil and add the mint sprig and the bulgur. Stir to distribute the bulgur. Cover and bring to pressure again. Cook under low pressure for 5 minutes, or until the bulgur is cooked. Season with salt and pepper if needed.

4 Before serving the soup, make the dersa: Using a sharp knife, or even a mortar would be great, finely chop the cilantro [coriander] leaves and mix with the garlic, paprika and ground caraway.

4 Serve the harira in individual bowls, topped with a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkle of dersa.

Enjoy!

Teriyaki beef with wakame salad

2008-09-29T14:49:00.021+09:00

Authenticity vs innovation. Fusion vs faithfulness to origins. Is one more genuine and valuable than the other? Or is there room for both?--so long as the result is tasty, of course (g). It's a tricky business, this world of food.

I suppose I'm at the stick-with-tradition end of the spectrum. I get a kick out of sourcing odd ingredients for special recipes because I want to taste what the food would taste like in situ. I am not all that fond of cookbooks full of suggested substitutions for hard-to-find ingredients; much less those that don't even bother to give the originals, instead "helpfully" adapting traditional recipes for the "Western kitchen," or whatever. Don't even get me started on recipes that take a perfectly good tradition, then cavalierly change a few principal ingredients but fail to change the name of the dish! Perhaps it doesn't matter, so long as it's someone else's beloved Anzac biscuit or carbonara.

These days I see lots of "exotic" ingredients showing up in places that would make their traditional "owners'" toes curl. Living here in Japan, Western inventions like "salads" made with soba, Japan's buckwheat noodles, just seem so wrong. Call me a pedant, but here is a particular way to eat soba, and tossed with chopped herbs and veggies just isn't it.

Occasionally, though, you come across one of those rare sublime fusions that are so right and so in tune with the original cuisine that you wonder why they hadn't been thought of before! Take this roast beef and wakame salad, which is from Kitchen, a Marie Claire title written by Aussie food writer Michele Cranston.

Wakame, a much-loved, a-hem, sea vegetable is often to be found in salads here in Japan. You can even buy instant seaweed salad here: just add water! Teriyaki , a thick marinade cum sauce that is at once deeply savoury and sweet, is another Japanese staple, most usually slathered on fish and chicken, but superb here on beef. And ginger, a traditional garnish for teriyaki fish, really brings the flavours together in the dressing in this recipe. Truly, it's almost as if a Japanese person came up with the combination (especially if you use mizuna as I did rather than the more Western watercress)!

Oh, and the dressing contains no oil! Any way you slice it, this is a real winner in my book. Any Japanese friends out there, definitely give this one a go!

I usually make my own teriyaki no tare (teriyaki sauce) , so I'm including the instructions below. If you're making a batch for this recipe, be sure to start it first.

Oh, and though Michele has treated this as a starter, it is fairly substantial so some crusty bread or rice might be enough of a meal for lighter eaters.

Teriyaki no tare

100 ml mirin
100 ml Japanese soy sauce
100 ml sake
2 tbsp sugar

Reduce in a pan until the consistency of honey.

Teriyaki beef with wakame salad

Serves 4 as a starter

450 g lean beef fillet
3 tbsp teriyaki sauce
25 g dried wakame seaweed
3 Japanese or Lebanese (short) cucumbers
4 tbsp rice vinegar
1/2 tsp Japanese soy sauce
2 tbsp caster sugar
3 cm piece of fresh ginger, julienned
2 red radishes, sliced
1 large handful mizuna or watercress sprigs
1 tbsp black sesame seeds

1 Marinate the beef in the teriyaki sauce for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C (400 degrees F). Heat a heavy-based oven-proof pan over high heat and sear the fillet on all sides. Put onto a baking tray and bake for 10 minutes. Remove and set aside.

2 Soak the wakame in cold water for 10 min, or until soft. Drain, put in a bowl and cover with 1 tbsp vinegar. Thinly slice the cucumbers diagonally and put into a separate bowl. Sprinkle with 1/2 tsp salt and set aside to drain some of the juices for several minutes. [Saffron: Alternatively, just squeeze the juice out by hand.] Dissolve the sugar in the soy sauce and remaining vinegar and add the ginger. Rinse the salt off the cucumber [if you used the salting method] and gently squeeze dry. Combine the wakame, cucumber, radish and dressing in a bowl and toss to combine.

3 Thinly slice the beef and divide among four small plates. Top with the salad and garnish with mizuna or watercress and black sesame seeds.

Enjoy!

Tunisian parsley and egg tagine

2008-09-15T20:15:00.017+09:00

Many visitors to [Paula Wolfert's] site are familiar with Moroccan tagines---stews of meat, poultry, or fish smothered with one or two vegetables or fruits, cooked in an earthenware dish with a conical cover.

Tunisian tagines are different.

So begins leading Mediterranean food writer Paula Wolfert's introduction to this exotic meal-in-one dish that shares virtually nothing in common with its namesake stews from neighbouring Morocco. While both may start with a rich stew, the Tunisian version takes it to a whole different place with a topping of parsley (in this case), egg and cheese that's baked into a frittata-like crust. So that's meat, beans, veggies and dairy--and a breadcrumb topping for good measure--all rolled into one. Different, indeed!

You could say I made this dish as an excuse for trying out the cinnamon and rose mix that is Tunisian baharat. I had some dried rosebuds (purchased from Ohtsuya in Ueno, Tokyo) that wanted using, so I whipped up a batch of 2 parts cinnamon, 2 parts rosebuds and 1 part black pepper. The original recipe calls for one part of each, but Paula's doesn't include pepper, so I cut back a little (g). Although Paula mentions rubbing the rosebuds through a sieve, I found this, and going at them with a mortar and pestle, virtually useless. My handy dandy new spice grinder made short work of it, though. The resulting blend was quite sweet smelling, so I was interested in how this would taste.

In the original recipe, Paula has us mixing the stew with the egg, parsley and cheese mixture and baking the whole thing as one, but I thought it would be nicer to have it in two layers. If you go that way, make sure to salt the stew, as all the seasoning is in the cheesy half otherwise.

And how did it taste? Well, I quite liked the egg and parsley topping, which fairly oozed cheese (in the best way, of course (g)), but would definitely recommend you use flat-leaf parsley rather than curly (which was all I could get on the day). I wasn't so fond of the baharat in this particular dish, or maybe it was just the cinnamon. (The mix is brilliant on stewed apples, though, pepper and all.) My dear Iranian friend Hw gave this the thumbs up, but the Young Man reckoned it tasted better cold for lunch the next day. So the results were mixed at this end.

I don't think I will do this particular version again, but I am intrigued enough to find out what else Tunisian cuisine has to offer, so I might get Paula's Mediterranean Cooking at some point, even if it means mucking about with pounds and ounces and other such things we metric people are illiterate about. That's basically the only reason I haven't bought her Couscous & Other Good Food From Morocco yet, though I suspect it is the seminal work on one of my favourite cuisines.

I've altered the recipe for metric and the pressure cooker and for layers. I also used beans I had cooked and frozen myself. You can refer back to the original recipe from the link above.

Tunisian baharat

2 tsp ground dried rosebuds
2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

Tunisian parsley and egg tagine

1 cup cooked white beans
400 g lean boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 1.5 cm cubes
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
2 1/2 tbsp olive oil
1/2 cup minced onion
2 tsp tomato paste
1/4 tsp cayenne
3 packed cups chopped flat-leaf parsley
1/2 cup soft bread crumbs
30 g Parmesan cheese, grated (about 1/3 cup)
100 g Gruyere cheese, cubed (about 1 cup)
1/2 tsp Tunisian baharat (1 part ground dried rosebuds mixed with 1 part ground cinnamon)
6 large eggs
6 lemon wedges

1. Toss lamb with salt and pepper.

2. Heat 1 1/4 tbsp oil in a small pressure cooker. Cook the onion until translucent, add the meat, and saute for 5 minutes. Cover and cook over low heat until the meat gives off its moisture and reabsorbs it. Add the tomato paste and cook, stirring, until lamb cubes are well coated. Add cayenne and about 1 cup of water. Cover, bring to pressure and cook over a low heat for 10 minutes longer, or until the meat is fully cooked and the juices are thick. Stir in beans, check seasoning and remove from the heat and allow to cool. (Up to this point the dish can be made 1 day in advance. Return to room temperature before proceeding.)

3. Place the oven rack in the second highest position and preheat the oven to 200 degrees C.

4. In a mixing bowl, combine 1/3 cup of the bread crumbs, grated Parmesan, and cubed Gruyere, mixing well. Season highly with salt, pepper, and sieved baharat. Beat the eggs to a froth and add to the mixture.

5. Use the remaining oil to coat the bottom and sides of a 5- or 6-cup (1-1.2 l) baking dish, or an attractive23 cm well-seasoned oven proof skillet. Layer the lamb on the bottom of the dish and cover with the prepared mixture, sprinkle with reserved bread crumbs and set in the oven to bake for 12 minutes. Raise the oven heat to the highest setting, remove the tagine from the oven, tilt the dish so that the oil collects in one place, then brush this oil over the surface of the tagine. Return the dish to the oven and bake for 8 minutes. Serve hot or at room temperature from the dish. [S: Don't forget the lemons (g).]

Enjoy!