Zesty meze 1: Chickpea and tamarind dip

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

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!)

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

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

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

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

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