Shiomomi nasu: Salt-massaged eggplants with Japanese aromotics

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!

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

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!

Autumn harvest salad with persimmons

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!

Slatit batata helwa: Claudia's Moroccan sweet potato salad

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!

Teriyaki beef with wakame salad

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!

Coconut chicken salad

I adapted this creamy, piquant, zesty Thai-inspired salad from a recipe found ages ago on the Age website.

Although, adapt is perhaps not the right word: I was intending making the recipe to specification, but the heavens had other ideas. For one thing, the green papaya I bought, having checked with the veggie shop lady that it was indeed an unripe papaya for salads, turned out not to be! Oooops. Then there was the toasted rice thing. Had planned on doing that too, but was too short of time. (It was good to learn how to make it, though, for a time when time is on my side (g).) The lack of time (and it being hot in the kitchen) also threw the blackened chillis out the window! I'll keep that one up my sleeve for next time.

Not to worry. The recipe was stellar for all that. The only thing I would advise is to add a little less fish sauce to begin with, and check for saltiness as you go.

This is an Australian recipe, tablespoons are 20 ml and cups 250 ml. If using non-Aussie measuring spoons, add an extra teaspoon for each tablespoon. Just guestimate for the cups. It is not going to make much difference to a recipe like this.

INGREDIENTS
For the chicken
2 chicken breasts, skin removed
1 tin coconut milk
3 tbsp fish sauce
2 tbsp grated palm sugar
4 kaffir lime leaves

For the dressing
2 green chillies, halved and deseeded (leave seeds in if you want it hot)
3 tbsp grated palm sugar
juice of 1-2 limes
3 tbsp fish sauce
2-3 tbsp of cooled coconut poaching liquid

For the salad
1/3 cup rice
1/2 cup of peanut oil
6 large dried red chillies, halved and deseeded
1-2 green papayas, peeled and cut very thinly (a mandolin is good)
a handful each of Thai basil and coriander leaves
2 kaffir lime leaves, very finely sliced

METHOD
For the chicken: Gently poach the chicken in the coconut milk, fish sauce, sugar and lime leaves until just cooked (about 10 minutes depending on size). Leave the chicken to cool in the liquid. Once cool, shred by hand.

For the dressing: Crush the chillies in a mortar and pestle, then add the sugar and combine until you have a wet paste. Add remaining ingredients and pound (you can use a food processor but the mortar and pestle gives a better result). Adjust to taste. If the dressing is too hot add more coconut liquid.

For the salad: Place the rice in a wok over high heat and stir until the rice turns opaque and lightly toasted. When cool, crush into fine crumbs in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle.

Place the clean wok over high heat with the peanut oil. When the oil is hot, add the dried chillies and move about with a ladle. They will turn dark brown very quickly. Turn onto kitchen paper. When cool, crush to a powder as for the rice.

Combine the papaya, chicken, lime leaves, herbs and dressing. Place on serving plates and sprinkle with the ground rice and blackened chilli.

Enjoy!

Beans with ocean trout, preserved lemons and rocket

It is a real special occasion to get the opportunity to eat this dish. It has been a favourite of mine for many years, but it contains just one too many of the things that make the Young Man turn up his nose for me to be able to make and actually expect him to eat it. Hopefully you don't have such problems, as this is a truly spectacular medley, despite comprising just a handful of ingredients.

I remember printing this out years ago (my printout is well spattered and grease-stained--always a good sign), but forgot where. Happily, it is still on the Net, and wouldn't you know it, it's from my food hero Nigel!

Nigel's version is for flageolet beans and salmon, but I've substituted soy beans and ocean trout, which I reckon is even better. I've also made this with white beans and chickpeas, and spinach instead of rocket (which goes by the name arugula in other parts, apparently) before, so feel free to ring the changes yourself. It is what Nigel would tell you himself.

If you have a stash of pre-cooked pulses in the freezer, you can have this on the table in minutes. Just don't forget to reheat your beans beforehand, to kill off any lurking bacteria. If you have a pressure cooker and remember to soak your beans before going out to work, you'll still be tucking in in no time. Soy beans take around 3 1/2 minutes to cook under pressure. I'll leave Nigel's full instructions here, in case neither of these options are available to you.

Soy beas with ocean trout, preserved lemons and rocket

Serves 2 as a main dish

150g dried soy beans
6 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
couple of bay leaves (optional)
1 tbsp white wine vinegar
half a preserved (pickled) lemon
a loosely cupped handful of coriander leaves
300g ocean trout fillet (the tail is good here)
2 small bunches (about 100g) rocket leaves

Rinse the beans - they can be dusty - and check them over for any small stones, then soak overnight in cold water. They will need a good five or six hours to plump up. Drain, then tip into a deep pan of furiously boiling water, but adding no salt - it would make them tough. Cook for 10 minutes or so at a fierce boil - a habit that is supposed to stop them from giving you wind later on - then turn them down to a rolling boil. I put a little olive oil and a couple of bay leaves in at this point for no other reason than that it makes the kitchen smell good as they cook.

If the water gets low, top it up from the kettle. The time the beans will take to cook is anyone's guess - much will depend on their age. At this time of year they are certain to be last year's harvest, so they will need at least 40 minutes (mine took an hour yesterday). New-season's dried beans that appear in the autumn should be tender in 20 minutes.

A tender bean will squash easily between your fingers, but the best way is to taste them.

Put the salmon on a dish or grill pan and rub it lightly with oil, then cook it under an overhead grill for 10 minutes or so till the flesh is just opaque.

To make the dressing, add the vinegar to the oil in a large mixing bowl, a grind of salt and pepper (remember that the lemon will be salty), then finely chop the lemon and roughly chop the coriander leaves and add them both to the oil and vinegar. Pull the fish from its skin in fat chunks - I think bigger pieces are more attractive in a salad - and add them to the dressing. No need to toss it yet.

Drain the beans (you can get them ready early in the day and shake them in a little seasoned olive oil while they are warm), then toss them gently with the salmon and dressing. Try not to break up the fish.

Pick the rocket over, discarding anything that is not in good nick, then fold the leaves tenderly into the salad and serve in the next half hour or so, before the leaves wilt in the dressing. Serves 2 as a main dish.


Enjoy!

Southeast Asian Sojourn 3: Chicken and papaya salad

Chicken and papaya salad. So far not so inspiring... But don't let the workaday name put you off this one. It is a stellar recipe with lots of bright, bold flavours -- how does tamarind, ginger, mint and cumin grab you?! It's also a snap to put together after work as, even with all that taste going on, no marinating is involved. The Young Man and I gobbled this right up, and ended up eating what would have been our lunch for the following day. Next time, I'll make sure to make more!

Although I'd had my eye on this recipe for a while, I made it on the spur of the moment when I discovered premium papayas at my veggie shop. I had some spinach in the crisper, but it was looking a little ragged. But rather than chucking it out, I tried a new technique I learned on Japanese TV (which does have a very few redeeming qualities, after all) for reviving leaf veggies.

Basically, you soak your lettuce, spinach, or even strawberries, apparently, in HOT water (60 C) from the tap for 3 minutes, then rinse in cold water and use as normal. It is totally unintuitive, but having done the experiment myself, I can tell you it works! The miraculous reviving properties of hot water were discovered by the good ladies that make school lunches in Japan, after the government instituted a new rule requiring them to wash veggies in hot rather than cold water to prevent outbreaks of food poisoning. Way to go, ladies!

The original recipe uses betel leaves instead of spinach. I am not familiar with these, but everyone knows spinach.

This is another recipe from Marie Claire Kitchen, which is almost perfect but for the sizable chunk of the book that is given over to baked and other sweet goodies. As you may have guessed from the recipes I choose for this blog, dessert is not a big feature in the Saffron household... Then again, if the mood strikes me, some of the "afters" in this book might just be the ones to tempt me.

Chicken and papaya salad

(Note that Australian tablespoons (20 ml) are used in this recipe. Add an extra tsp for each tbsp if using non-Australian measuring spoons.)

Serves 4

125 ml tamarind water
[S: I cheated and added store bought tamarind paste until it tasted right, about 1 tbsp]
1 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
1/2 tsp cumin seeds, roasted and ground
1 large red chilli, seeded and finely diced
2 grilled chicken thighs, roughly sliced
85 g peanuts, roughly chopped [S: Missing from mine due to shopping list malfunction (g)]
1 orange papaya, peeled, seeded and sliced
1 Japanese cucumber or 100 g of other kinds, diced
2 tbsp Asian fried onions [S: Missing from mine due to recipe reading failure (g)]
2 spring onions, shredded into lengths
1 large handful mint [S: Peppermint was sensational]
Spinach leaves, washed

Mix the tamarind water, soy sauce, ginger, brown sugar , roasted cumin and chilli together in a large bowl and stir until the sugar has dissolved. Add the chicken to the dressing and toss it all together. Combine the remaining salad ingredients except the spinach leaves in another bowl and season.

Arrange the spinach leaves on a serving platter or 4 plates and top with the papaya salad and chicken. Top with any remaining dressing.

Enjoy!

Southeast Asian Sojourn 2: Chargrilled lemongrass chicken with vermicelli salad

The Young Man got very excited about this one, and told me to say that you really, really have to try it!!

Like he says, it's a super healthy Vietnamese-style (or possibly Thai? I'm happy to be corrected) noodle salad with a great deal going for it: Munchy cucumber and bean shoots, check! Cool, fresh-tasting herbs, check! Vietnam's signature lime, fish sauce and garlic flavours, check! Flavourful crispy-skinned grilled chicken, check! Slippery rice noodles that glide right down the throat, check! It's all here.

You might want to start this in the morning, as you'll want the chicken to marinate for at least a few hours. If you make the nuoc cham in advance (or at least before you prep the salad), you'll have time to chill it in the fridge before serving. Then it will be super easy to put everything together once the chicken is cooked. Since I haven't seen red chillies in Yokohama shops for a while (and the YM would resist them in any case), I substituted a sprinkle of cayenne pepper, and added some quartered nanachan tomatoes for a bit of color. Even if they're not traditional, I think they are a nice addition.

Nuoc cham is the near ubiquitous Vietnamese dipping sauce/condiment. I made mine with Thai fish sauce, which is what I had on hand. It is, I think, a little less salty than its Vietnamese cousin. See this lovely book excerpt at the recklessly enticing The Global Gourmet site for more on this and other Vietnamese flavourings and condiments.

This recipe comes from my latest favourite cookbook, Blue Ginger by Les Huynh. I've adjusted it to feed 4.

Oh, and when Les advises a small food processor, he means small! I used my trusty (but) tiny Braun Multimix (which is perfect for a shoe-box sized kitchen), and even then ended up finishing the marinade off with a mortar and pestle. Since I wasn't using chillies, I didn't need the food processor at all for the nuoc cham.

Chargrilled lemongrass chicken with rice vermicelli salad

(Note: Australian tablespoons (20 ml) are used in this recipe. Add an extra 1 tsp for each tbsp if using non-Australian measuring spoons)

For 4

2 boned chicken thighs
1 tbsp vegetable oil

Marinade:
3 lemongrass stems (white part only), chopped
4 garlic cloves, peeled
white pepper, to taste
1 tsp sugar
2 tsp fish sauce
4 tbsp vegetable oil

Salad:
200 g dried rice vermicelli
1 double handful bean sprouts
2 small handfuls mint leaves, sliced if spearmint, whole if peppermint, or a mix of both
2 handfuls Thai basil leaves [S: or regular basil leaves if Thai variety is unavailable]
2 Japanese cucumbers or 200 g of other kinds, deseeded and julienned
200 ml nuoc cham (Vietnamese dipping sauce; see below)

Spring onion oil:
2 1/2 tbsp vegetable oil
4 spring onions, finely sliced

To make the marinade, use a mortar and pestle to pound the lemongrass, pepper and a pinch of salt into a paste. Work in the sugar, fish sauce and oil, pounding until the sugar dissolves. Alternatively, chop the ingredients into a paste using a small food processor. Scoop the marinade into a non-metallic bowl with the chicken. Coat the chicken in the marinade, then marinate in the refrigerator overnight [S: I think doing it in the morning for cooking in the evening is plenty].

To make the salad, put the vermicelli in a bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave to soften for 5-7 minutes. Drain, refresh under cold water, then drain again. Transfer to a large bowl, add the remaining salad ingredients and mix well.

To make the spring onion oil, heat the oil until hot, then add the spring onions and a pinch of salt and cook for 30 seconds. Take the pan off the heat and set aside.

Preheat a chargrill pan or barbecue hotplate over medium-high heat. Heat 1 tbsp vegetable oil in the pan. Remove the chicken from the marinade and cook it for 7 minute on each side, or until cooked, occasionally pressing firmly on the chicken with a spatula. Remove from the pan, rest in a warm place for 5 minutes, then slice.

To serve, pile the salad into a serving bowl and top with the chicken slices. Drizzle with the spring onion oil. Serve with lime wedges.

Nuoc cham

2 long red chillies, deseeded and roughly chopped
[S: or to taste. I substituted with a sprinkle of cayenne]
1 garlic clove, peeled
1 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp lime juice
3 tbsp fish sauce [S: I used less. Add gradually to your taste]
1 tbsp rice vinegar
3 tbsp water

Makes 200 ml

Use a mortar and pestle to pound the chillies and garlic into a paste. Alternatively, chop the ingredients in a small food processor. Add the sugar, lime juice, fish sauce, vinegar and 3 tbsp water. Stir until the sugar dissolves.

Enjoy!

Couscous with herbs & chickpeas

I've been sending the Young Man out before dinner just about every night this week to get more fresh herbs for our ongoing foray into Southeast Asian flavours. How lucky are we to have a supermarket that almost always has a stock of the usual herby favourites not more than 30 seconds outside our door (okay, I admit that I did choose our flat for its proximity to the "super", but that was way back in the day when parsley was about the only "foreign" herb you could expect to find fresh there).

Although this lively salad doesn't hail from Southeast Asia, the herb theme continues, so I'm sneaking it in anyway (call it blogger's prerogative (g)). The couscous, preserved lemon and chickpeas give it a Middle Eastern feel, but this salad is born and bred in Australia. It is from Marie Claire Kitchen, and is a total doddle.

I used brown chickpeas this time, as I seem to be out of the normal kind. They are slightly smaller than regular chickpeas, and only took 1 minute 40 seconds in the pressure cooker (after soaking since the morning)!

I also upped the ante with the lemon juice. I never can get enough of the stuff. That is on top of the preserved lemon (I used a quarter of a lemon, both peel and pulp).

We had this with pan-fried boneless chicken thighs that I had marinated for a bit in the juice of a lemon, 1 tsp of cumin, 2 crushed garlic cloves, a glug of olive oil and some S&P; a trick I picked up from Nigel's The 30 Minute Cook, a cookbook I could can't recommend highly enough (mine is falling to bits from use and it's only a couple of years old).

Couscous with herbs & chickpeas

(Note that Australian tablespoons are used in this recipe. Add an extra 1 tsp for ever tbsp if using non-Australian measures)

175 g couscous
1 tsp butter
400 g tin chickpeas, drained and rinsed [S: or the equivalent of cooked chickpeas]
2 large, ripe tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 red onion, finely diced
1 handful mint leaves
1 handful coriander leaves
1 handful Italian parsley
2 tbsp lemon juice, or to taste
3 tbsp olive oil [S: you can get away with quite a bit less]
2 tbsp diced preserved lemon

Put the couscous in a large bowl with the butter and cover with 250 ml boiling water. Leave the couscous for 20-30 minutes, from time to time separating the grains with a fork. Before adding the remaining salad ingredients, rub the cooked grains between you fingers to break up any lumps.

Toss the couscous and all the salad ingredients together and season with salt and ground black pepper.

Enjoy!

Southeast Asian sojourn 1: Thai minced chicken salad with cashew nuts

Since we went out with friends to a Thai restaurant in Ueno (Tokyo), I've had Thai food on the mind a bit. And Vietnamese, too. So I thought I'd do some Southeast Asian-inspired recipes this week for a bit of a change.

This dish, adapted from a great recipe in Blue Ginger, which I mentioned a while back, is exactly what I had in mind when I went in search of a larb recipe back in February! That effort really tasted fabulous, but was not quite as colourful as I might have liked. But this rendition, with its contrasting reds and greens, lovely clean tastes AND cashew nuts, is as pleasing to the eye as it is to the tongue!

This time, I used what Blue Ginger author Les Huynh calls "red Asian shallots". These are a whole different thing from the shallots I used last time, and really pack quite a wallop for such a small onion. Which is why I cooked them along with the chicken. They're left raw in the original recipe, but I'll leave the final decision about what to do with them up to you. (Red onion would substitute nicely if you can't get a hold of the little red shallots.)

The original recipe serves this salad with a wedge of raw cabbage. The Young Man didn't fancy that, so we did without, but I reckon next time I will try this with some shredded cabbage thrown into the herb and nut mixture.

Although this was my first selection from Blue Ginger, I think a hearty recommendation for the book is in order. Sometimes cookbooks with scrummy pictures don't come up with the goods with the recipes, but happily this isn't one of them. Les' recipes are super easy to follow, and callout shots of the more unusual ingredients really help you know what you're after. Les even includes recipes for Southeast Asian kitchen staples like chilli jam! The publishers have also done a great job with the index in this work, so it is super easy to pinpoint the recipe you're after. Cookbook junkies rejoice!

Anyway, I was so impressed with this recipe, I'm doing another one from the book tonight. In fact, lemongrass chicken is marinating away in the fridge as we speak. Roll on dinner time!

Thai minced chicken salad with cashew nuts

For 2

250 ml chicken stock or water
300 g minced chicken
3 small red shallots

Dressing:
3 tbsp lime juice
1 1/2 tbsp fish sauce, or to taste
1/2 tbsp brown sugar
pinch of chilli powder

Herb and nut mixture:
1/4 small cabbage, finely shredded
1 handful mint leaves
1 handful coriander leaves
1 lemongrass stem (white part only), finely sliced
1 double handful of cherry tomatoes ( in Japan, I like Nanachan tomatoes), some halved, some quartered
1 handful roasted cashew nuts

1 To make dressing, combine lime juice, fish sauce, sugar and chilli powder in a small bowl and stir until the sugar has dissolved.

2 To make the herb and nut mixture, combine all the ingredients in a bowl and gently toss together.

3 Pour the chicken stock into a pot and bring to the boil. Add the chicken, shallots and a pinch of salt (if using unsalted stock). Cook, stirring frequently for 3-4 minutes, or until the chicken is just cooked, then drain and put in a large bowl. Add the dressing and all the herb and nut mixture, then toss together thoroughly.

Enjoy!

A few favourite salads: Smashed cucumber salad with sesame dressing

Other than the Japanese herb shiso, or perilla, there is nothing especially unusual in this salad, but I really get a kick out of the way it's prepared: by bashing away at your cucumber with the handle end of the knife! In other words, stress relief and something yummy at the end of it. I should charge double!

Perilla is a Japanese herb that has a strong, clean taste that you either love or hate. I love it, but the Young Man won't have a bar of it, so it gets left off his portion. If you can't find perilla, you could substitute basil, in which case, perhaps a sweet wine could substitute for the mirin.

In Japan's hot and sticky summer months, this super simple salad, with its cooling cucumbers and shiso, really hits the spot.

This recipe is also translated and adapted from one found in this Japanese book.

Smashed cucumber salad with sesame dressing

3 Japanese cucumbers, or 300 g of other kinds
1 tomato
5 shiso (perilla) leaves
1 tbsp sesame paste (tahini is fine)
1 tbsp vinegar
1/2 tbsp mirin

1 Smash the cucumbers with the handle of a knife or a rolling pin into rough, uneven pieces. Cut tomato into bite-sized chunks. Roll the perilla (or basil) leaves together and slice into long, thin strips. Slice down the middle of the roll of strips to shorten them.

2 Make dressing by shaking sesame paste, vinegar and mirin in a clean jar. Pour over the vegetables, toss, and top with shiso strips.

Enjoy!

A few favourite salads: Cucumber, hijiki and daikon salad

The cold spell we had the last couple of weeks is finally over, and it's time to look out the salad bowls and get into some veggie crunching.

This munchy, crunchy salad is one of our favourites and, with its four veggies and one sea veggie, fairly boosts the vegetable intake. The addition of tuna makes it substantial enough to accompany just a piece of grilled chicken or fish (when you can't be bothered cooking much else).

Daikon, the long, white Japanese radish, is eaten raw in this salad. Much milder than red radishes, this root vegetable is used in Japanese cooking all through the year.

According to the dictionary, hijiki (the blackish threads in the photo) is a kind of brown algae, known by the scientific name Hizikia fusiforme. That doesn't sound too appetizing, I know. But this sea vegetable is said to be a rich source of iodine, calcium, iron, silicon, copper, zinc and selenium, and that's not too shabby. When cooked in lightly sweetened soy and dashi stock as it is here, it becomes a savory little bite that will have everyone round the table guessing what it is! Sold, dried, in packets in every supermarket here in Japan, but you are probably going to have to go to a specialist stockist to get it elsewhere.

This recipe is translated and adapted from one in this Japanese book.

Cucumber, hijiki and daikon salad

For 4

10 g hijiki
1/2 cup dashi stock (can be made with dashinomoto stock granules or a dashi pack)
2 tsp soy sauce
2 tsp sugar
2 Japanese cucumbers or 200 g of other types
1/3 carrot
5 cm length of daikon
1 small tin of tuna flakes, drained
1/3 cup frozen corn kernels
4 tbsp mayonnaise, or to taste
2 tsp soy sauce (optional)

1 Soak the hijiki in warm water for a few minutes and drain. In a small pot, cook hijiki, dashi, sugar and soy sauce over low heat until all the liquid is evaporated, stirring occasionally.

2 Slice cucumbers on thinly on the diagonal and wring out some of the juice by hand. Julienne the carrot and daikon.

3 Mix all the ingredients in a large bowl with the mayonnaise, salt and pepper, and the extra soy sauce, if using.

Enjoy!

Vietnamese beef and noodle salad

It was unseasonably hot the other day (27 C in early May!), but luckily I had already planned on making this yummy sounding salad recipe that I nicked from Melbourne's The Age newspaper a while back (when the weather was warmer in the southern hemisphere than it is now). It doesn't seem to be available on the Age web site any more, but you can get it, with a spiffy photo, at Cuisine.

I used the remains of a packet of Thai rice noodles instead of the mung-bean thread (glass or cellophane) noodles, soaked in hot water out of the tap. Having done some further sleuthing, I reckon I'd soak them in fresh-boiled water next time (or use the correct noodles as instructed (g)). They were a little on the crunchy side (g).

I also cooked my block of good Aussie beef (being preferable to the US stuff with Japanese consumers for the last few years due to ongoing BSE problems in the US) in the oven, as you'd never get it under our tiny grill, which is intended for fish, after all. If you do it this way, you'd want to preheat your oven to 200 C and sear the beef on all sides in an ovenproof frying pan, then bung it in the oven for around 10 minutes. Leave it to rest before carving. I thought the beef (which wasn't a fillet) was a little tough, so I might add a bit of vinegar to the hoi sin sauce marinade next time and see what happens.

Looking at the photos, I realize I inadvertently topped my version with dried Thai shrimp instead of the fried shallots. In Yokohama, both can be found at this shop.

I also didn't add the coriander, as the Young Man basically won't eat anything with it in.

Now, this was my first foray into Southeast Asian salads, and I can't believe how easy it was. The tastes are big and bold, and there's lots of different things going on texture-wise, too. This is a definite keeper, and was a nice intro into an area covered in more depth by this book, which was my last cookbook purchase from the bookshop downstairs at work before the office moved to down-town Tokyo (where downstairs is home only to swanky (read "overpriced") eateries and NO bookshops with extensive cookbook offerings (how will I survive?!). You'll be hearing more on Blue Ginger shortly, I imagine (g).

Vietnamese beef and noodle salad

Serves 4

For the salad
350g porterhouse or fillet of beef
4 tbsp hoi sin sauce
200g mung-bean thread (also called glass) noodles
1 cup each of mint, Thai basil and coriander leaves
1 Lebanese cucumber, thinly sliced
2 long red chillies, deseeded and finely sliced
4 tbsp crushed roasted peanuts
2 tbsp fried shallots

For the dressing
3-4 tbsp grated palm sugar [S: dense brown sugar is a good substitute]
juice of 2 limes
3 tbsp fish sauce
1 stick of lemon grass, white part, finely sliced

Method
Marinate the beef in the hoi sin for 2 hours. Soak the noodles in hot water until soft. Drain, rinse in cold water and cut into manageable lengths (about 10cm) [S: kitchen scissors make short work of this]. Combine the herbs, cucumber, chilli and noodles in a bowl. Combine the dressing ingredients and adjust to taste. It should taste sweet, salty and tangy all at once.

Grill the beef to medium rare and allow to rest for 5 minutes. Slice thinly and add to the salad. Toss everything together and serve on plates sprinkled with the roasted peanuts and fried shallots.

Enjoy!

Birthday cook-up round up 4: Laab

Photo courtesy of Lea at Aloha Malaho

One great thing for the foodie working for a big advertising agency with offices around the world is the yummy treats that folk from those offices bring when visiting head office (us!). Being firmly in the saffron side of the culinary world, choccies, nougat, stuffed dates and the nutty things from Dubai and parts around there are especially welcome (g).

But over the years, I've discovered other favourites: Champagne chocolates from Germany, dried fruit from Malaysia and Indonesia, and especially the Chinese and Thai-produced versions of Japanese confectioner Glico's "Pretz" biscuit stick snacks.

And especially, especially the larb version from Thailand. The box says "Thai-style spicy salad" with a picture of a chili and a dish that looks more like mince than a salad.

Here's a picture nicked from an interesting-looking blog in an unknown (Northern European?) language.

The Pretz themselves have a lot going on. They are sort of fishy and chili-y and sourish at the same time: totally addictive. We don't have anything snacky as hot in Japan (except maybe Tyrant Habanero and its sibling snacks, which taste okay, but are built on one of those dodgy unidentifiable chip bases (like Pringles) that are not actually a chip).

So back to the birthday. I was flipping through the current Donna Hay magazine looking for some menu inspiration, and what should I come across but a recipe for larb (or laab, I think it was spelled). Next thing, I'm thinking, well if the replica in biscuit form is that good, how much better must the real thing be??! And wouldn't that be something to surprise my guests with, particularly when one of them is practically an honourary citizen of Thailand, having visited there so often.

Anyway, I wanted an authentic version for my first attempt, hence this recipe from ThaiTable, rather than Donna Hay's.

I did a few things differently (of course (g)). One thing is the shallot, which in the recipe appears to go in raw. But when I tried it raw, it tasted a little hmmmmm-ish to me, and had a grainy and slightly slimy but dry texture (a bit like roll-on deodorant on the tongue!), so it got cooked with the mince in my version.

I would also say that slightly under-cooking the mince (as is traditional but not recommended by the recipe authors) would be better, as this will allow the flavours to soak in more easily, with residual heat finishing the cooking off. I would also suggest draining off most of the liquid that forms when you cook the mince, so that your finished dish is not soaking in the liquor (and so you don't dilute the sharpness of the lime! (g)).

Next time I will be adding plenty more herbs than the recipe says (perhaps they mean stems rather than sprigs??) and garnish with some largish red chili rings (as in the DH mag picture). Large so that they can be taken out easily by those that don't want to eat them.

Also, I left the "toasted rice" out because I've no idea what it is (g).

Note that the recipe yields only a small amount. I doubled it, and it served 6 (alongside various other dishes).

We used salad greens as wrappers for the larb, and a dipping sauce would have been nice with it as well.

Laab: Spicy Thai mince and herb salad

Laab, also known as Larb and Laap, is a northeastern food. It usually eaten as a part of a set (laab, papaya salad and sticky rice.) The set is accompanied by string beans, sliver of cabbage, water spinach and Thai basil. It can be served as an appetizer. It can also be served as a main course along with other non-northeastern food. There are variations of laab, duck laab, chicken laab. Some people like my brother love to include a few pieces of liver in laab.

1-2 Servings

1 tablespoon toasted rice
1/4 shallot, thinly sliced
1-2 limes
1/2 lbs ground pork (beef or chicken)
1/4 tablespoon ground dried chili pepper
3 tablespoons fish sauce
5 sprigs cilantro [coriander], sliced
3 sprigs spearmint
1 green onion [spring onion], sliced

Tips and substitutions
Substitute any ground meat for ground pork. Substitute red onion or just onion for shallot if you like. The spearmint adds zing to the laab.

Squeeze juice from 1/3 of the lime on to the ground pork. Mix well and let it marinade for just a couple of minutes until you are ready to cook it.

For this dish, people normally use a small pot; I use my cast iron pans because they can be heated up really hot, they retain heat well and heat evenly.

Heat up a pan on high until it is very hot. Add two tablespoons of water and then immediately add your marinated pork [S: and shallot or onion, if you prefer them cooked like me] and stir. The pork will stick to the pan at first, but then the juice will come out and the meat will loosen from the bottom. Keep stirring until the pork is well done. Traditionally, the pork is undercooked, but I do not recommend undercooking pork for health reasons.

Put the pork in a bowl a large mixing bowl that will hold all the ingredients. Add fish sauce, green onion, shallot, cilantro, the rest of the lime juice, ground chili pepper and almost all of toasted rice into the bowl. Save some toasted rice to sprinkle on top for garnish. Mix well and taste. It should be a little bit hot. You should be able to taste tartness from the lime juice and the fish sauce. If you need to add more fish sauce or lime juice, don't be afraid. Getting the flavor balance right is a trial and error process.

Put the mixed ingredients in a serving bowl, garnish with spearmint and sprinkle the rest of toasted rice on top. Serve with vegetables like cabbage, green beans, lettuce and Thai basil.

Enjoy!

Nigel's wild rice, pomegranate and prosciutto salad

Christmas tends to come early in Japan as the 25th is a normal work day, but the 23rd a national holiday for the Emperor's birthday (how kind of him to think of us poor expats in timing his arrival (g)).

This year, I thought I'd push the boat out a bit with tradition, since I thought our dear Iranian and Japanese guests may not have had a "real" Christmas dinner before. But I did want to include pomegranate, as it is a seasonal fruit in Iran, also, being a significant feature of the Yalda, or Winter Solstice celebration (December 22). How lucky for me, then, that pomegranate also seems to be in vogue in the UK this year. So I immediately snapped up this gorgeous salad from Nigel Slater's column in the Guardian for my Christmas menu.

Aside from tart little pomegranate rubies that pop pleasingly in your mouth and festive-looking green parsley, the salad's dressing contains the juice of not one but THREE citrus fruits. What could be more perfect for a blog named Saffron and Lemons!?

As for the prosciutto, well I could take it or leave it, personally. The cost to flavour ratio was not really there for me (but I did forget to flash-fry the papery slices in my haste to get stuck into it).

So for anyone looking for a substitute, having remembered that pork products are not on sale in their country of residence (g), the substitute is nothing except an extra little grinding of salt. I also found that, using a zester and not a box grater, I had more lime zest than I needed so I only used half. I reckon the recipe would be spot on if you are using the grater, though.

A good way of removing the pomegranate seeds (gleaned from the fabulous Silk Road Cooking: A Vegetarian Journey) is to score a long line around your pomegrante from the stalk to the base, peel the skin off and break the seeds up in a bowl of water. You can then scoop off any pith that may have got in as it floats while the seeds sink to the bottom.

Wild rice, pomegranate and prosciutto salad

Serves 4-6

125g wild rice
a large handful golden sultanas
a large handful pecans
2 pomegranates
a small bunch flat-leafed parsley

For the dressing
juice of half an orange
zest and juice of a lime
juice of half a lemon
balsamic vinegar - a few drops
olive oil - 2 tbs
12 thin slices of prosciutto
Sea salt

Cook the rice in four times its volume of lightly salted water, covered with a lid, for about 45-50 minutes. It should be tender, but still have a pleasing bite to it. Drain and allow to cool.

Put the saltanas and pecans into a mixing bowl. Break open the pomegranates and
remove the seeds, adding them to the saltanas. It is worth taking great care here, so that none of the bitter white pith surrounding the seeds gets in. Roughly chop the leaves from the parsley - I try to keep the pieces quite large - then stir them in.

Make the dressing by mixing the juice of the oranges, lime (plus zest) and lemon with the oil, vinegar and a generous pinch of sea salt.

Bring together the rice, fruits and dressing and leave to marry for 15 minutes. Cook the prosciutto slices briefly in a hot, non-stick fying pan. They will be flecked with gold in a matter of seconds. Place a couple of heaped tablespoons of the rice on each pile, then surround with the pieces of warm prosciutto.

With every last morsel being polished off, and the young man of the house declaring it "yummy", I think this salad may make regular appearances at our Christmas table from now on (and maybe at other times too).

Enjoy!